Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.
Interpretation
Debt represents a form of control over individuals, akin to slavery.
Ambrose Bierce's quote suggests that debt is a tool of oppression that binds individuals much like the physical restraints used by a slavedriver. It highlights how financial entanglements can lead to a loss of personal freedom, drawing a direct parallel between economic obligations and the harsh realities of slavery.
In practice
In a speech about financial literacy, one might reference this quote to emphasize the importance of avoiding debt.
PALM, n. A species of tree . . . of which the familiar "itching palm" ("Palma hominis") is most widely distributed . . . . This noble vegetable exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to the bark a piece of gold or silver.
Human nature is pretty well balanced; for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch--as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward.
Indigestion: A disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of the Western Wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: 'Plenty well, no pray; big belly ache, heap God.'
Disobey n:To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command
NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning - which is a phenomenon.
PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.
It is a clear truth that those who every day barter away other men's liberty will soon care little for their own.
THE FATHER: But don't you see that the whole trouble lies here? In words, words. Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never really do.
When a man was hurt you took him to the maester, but what could you do when your maester was hurt?
People's ability to forget what they do not want to know, to overlook what is before their eyes, was seldom put to the test better than in Germany at that time.
Watergate just happened to come along at the same time as the demand for honesty in relations between the sexes, in advertising, in ecology, in almost everything. It just stumbled into that great big elephant trap that had already been built for it.
My mother, Abra, had taught me that all people are made from the same dust. When our days here are gone, all men and women enter the same garden.
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