To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.
Ambrose BierceAn accident is an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws.
Ambrose BierceMONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.
Ambrose BierceBIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Etna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.
Ambrose Bierce