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A man is the sum of his ances...

A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain; you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden ...

RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fir...

RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

The bold and discerning write...

The bold and discerning writer who, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense has no following and is tartly reminded that 'it isn't in the dictionary' - although down to the time of the first lexicographer no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

USAGE, n. The First Person of...

USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philos...

GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to...

INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both - as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

POCKET, n. The cradle of moti...

POCKET, n. The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of others.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is...

SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to collect.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

If you would be accounted gre...

If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

PILGRIM, n. A traveler that i...

PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who [was] not permitted to sing psalms through his nose [in Europe], followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

FORCE, n. "Force is but might...

FORCE, n. "Force is but might," the teacher said p/ "That definition's just."/ The boy said naught but throught instead,/ Remembering his pounded head:/ "Force is not might but must!"

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

INTENTION, n. The mind's sens...

INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

FINANCE, n. The art or scienc...

FINANCE, n. The art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager. The pronunciation of this word with the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one of America's most precious discoveries and possessions.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby she...

OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Wh...

IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

Quill: An instrument of tortu...

Quill: An instrument of torture yielded by a goose and commonly weilded by as ass.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

CONGRESS, n. A body of men wh...

CONGRESS, n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

OATH, n. In law, a solemn app...

OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's f...

DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

Добрые, щедрые, великодушные: 6 советских актеров, которые были всеобщими любимчиками

23

Советских актёров часто ставят в пример как образец духовной силы, национальной гордости и внутренней красоты. Они стали символами эпохи, носителями культуры и нравственности. Но, как известно, за кул...

Десять кинозвезд, которые отлично поют

83

Актеры — люди творческие, но кто бы мог подумать, что некоторые из них скрывают прекрасный голос. В эпоху раннего Голливуда актеров с музыкальными способностями было немало — это считалось скорее норм...

Мэрилин Монро, Ким Кардашьян и другие

115

Неузнаваемая Ким Кардашьян в объективе фотографа Маркуса Клинко, 2009 год. Памела Андерсон в самой первой съёмке для журнала «Playboy», 1990. На фото голливудская актриса Dorothy Lamour и шимпанзе Джи...

Что стало с детьми-звездами: Рэдклифф и компания спустя годы

219

Расскажем, как сложилась судьба актеров, которые начинали сниматься еще в детстве.
Остаться на вершине в Голливуде удаётся не каждому, особенно если путь начался в детстве. Одни актёры теряются из-за...

Жизнь за границей: как изменились судьбы 7 уехавших телеведущих

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Два года назад отечественное телевидение столкнулось с беспрецедентной кадровой тектоникой — целая группа ярких и узнаваемых ведущих стремительно исчезла с экранов федеральных каналов. Эти лица долгие...

Кира Найтли, Деми Мур и другие

165

Кира Найтли на страницах журнала к выходу фильма «Пиджак», 2005. Следы динозавра, раскопанные в русле реки Палакси. Техас. США. 1952г. Самая большая женщина рядом с самым маленьким мужчиной, 1922 год....