Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
Interpretation
The quote humorously critiques insurance as a gamble where the insured feels like they are winning against the insurer.
Ambrose Bierce's quote on insurance strips away the illusion of security that insurance provides, portraying it as a modern gamble. It highlights the paradox of individuals feeling victorious when they purchase insurance, unaware that they are playing a game where the odds are often stacked against them, and the true 'house' rarely loses.
In practice
In a debate about financial security, one might quote Bierce to emphasize the illusion behind insurance.
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.
The greatest good is what we do for others.
Of course you can have an opinion about Islam without having read Qur'an. You don't have to read Mein Kampf to have an opinion about Nazism.
Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.
Conflict exists strictly as an opportunity to raise our consciousness.
The testimony of scripture is so plain that to add anything were superfluous, were it not that the world is almost now come to that blindness, that whatsoever pleases not the princes and the multitude, the same is rejected as doctrine newly forged, and is condemned for heresy.
You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back.
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