Pyrrhic victory (PIR-ik VIK-tuh-ree) noun

   A victory won at a too great a cost.

[After Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, who suffered staggering losses while
defeating Romans.]

   "With lawsuits multiplying like crazy and mutual accusations of stealing
   the election spiralling out of control, almost any result now looks as if
   it will be a Pyrrhic victory."
   United States: Whatever Will They Think of Next? The Economist (London),
   Nov 25, 2000.

"One more such victory and we are lost," exclaimed Pyrrhus, the king of
Epirus, as he described his costly success in the battle of Asculum in
Apulia. With these words he gave us a metaphor to refer to a victory so
costly, it's hardly better than defeat. Yet, if we talk to those who lost
their sons, husbands, or fathers to war, every victory is a pyrrhic victory.
A war is perhaps the only occasion when killing  a person is not only
accepted but rewarded. If only we could learn to do war with words, instead.
Till then, let's look at a few words of war.                         -Anu

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I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable
to sit still in a room. -Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician
(1623-1662)

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Pronunciation:
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