PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.
Interpretation
Pardoning can sometimes reinforce negative behavior by removing consequences.
This quote by Ambrose Bierce satirically highlights the paradox of pardoning individuals who have committed crimes. It suggests that when someone is forgiven, rather than promoting rehabilitation, it may encourage further wrongdoing by implying that there are no real consequences for one's actions, thus adding an element of ingratitude to the act of crime itself.
In practice
In a discussion about justice and rehabilitation, you might say, 'As Bierce suggests, granting a pardon can sometimes enable further misconduct.'
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.
Kiss. n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss".
Stories serve the purpose of consolidating whatever gains people or their leaders have made or imagine they have made in their existing journey thorough the world.
Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window; Why, why, says the junk in the yard.
Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
Miracles can happen when we can keep our consciousness away from analyzing and classifying one another.
There's that popular misconception of man as something between a brute and an angel. Actually man is in transit between brute and God.
It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
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