Impartial - unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.
Interpretation
Being impartial means not having a personal bias or gaining from either side of a dispute.
Ambrose Bierce's definition of impartiality highlights the importance of objectivity in assessing controversies. Being unable to perceive any potential personal advantage from supporting one side over the other suggests that true impartiality requires a disinterest that allows for fair evaluation and understanding of differing perspectives.
In practice
This quote can be used in a debate to emphasize the importance of neutrality.
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.
Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.
Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination.
We are not meant to be perfect; we are meant to be whole
I have seen (as far as it can be seen) many persons changed in a moment from the spirit of horror, fear, and despair to the spirit of hope, joy, peace; and from sinful desires, till then reigning over them, to a pure desire of doing the will of God.
Look somewhere else for someone who can follow you in your researches about numbers. For my part, I confess that they are far beyond me, and I am competent only to admire them.
I went to Ethiopia, and it dawned on me that you can tell a starving, malnourished person because they've got a bloated belly and a bald head. And I realized that if you come through any American airport and see businessmen running through with bloated bellies and bald heads, that's malnutrition, too.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.