LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.
Interpretation
This quote humorously critiques lecturers as those who take money while providing information, often testing the patience of their students.
Ambrose Bierce's quote uses satire to portray lecturers as individuals who enjoy financial gain while engaging students in a somewhat tiresome manner. It highlights the often frustrating relationship between educators and students, suggesting that lecturers extract resources from their pupils while also demanding their attention and patience.
In practice
In a discussion about education funding, you might quote this to criticize the financials involved in higher education.
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.
Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.
I knew chemistry would be worse, because I'd seen a big card of the ninety-odd elements hung up in the chemistry lab, and all the perfectly good words like gold and silver and cobalt and aluminum were shortened to ugly abbreviations with different decimal numbers after them.
To ask the proper question is half of knowing.
Musical ability is not an inborn talent but an ability which can be developed. Any child who is properly trained can develop musical ability just as all children develop the ability to speak their mother tongue. The potential of every child is unlimited.
Learn to write well, or not to write at all.
Across time and generations, books carry the thoughts and feelings, the essence, of the human spirit.
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