Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
Interpretation
This quote humorously highlights the interconnectedness of life and the food chain, suggesting that what is beneficial for one may be harmful for another.
Ambrose Bierce's quote provides a sardonic view of the food chain, emphasizing the cyclical nature of life and death within ecosystems. By stating that each creature has its role in this chain, the quote invites reflection on the moral implications of consumption and the idea that all living things are ultimately linked, each serving as sustenance for another in a grand cycle of life.
In practice
This quote would be great to use in a discussion about ecosystems in a biology class.
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.
God help us from those who believe that they are the sole possessors of truth. How we manage at times to agree willingly to become prisoners within our own minds and souls of beliefs and ideas on which we can never be flexible.
We've been playing games since humanity had civilization - there is something primal about our desire and our ability to play games. It's so deep-seated that it can bypass latter-day cultural norms and biases.
None but a good man is really a living man, and the more good any man does, the more he really lives. All the rest is death, or belongs to it.
God's highest desire is not to make us rich, successful or popular. His goal is to make us His
There is but one Church in which men find salvation, just as outside the ark of Noah it was not possible for anyone to be saved.
Be it or be it not true that Man is shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, it is unquestionably true that Government is begotten of aggression, and by aggression.
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