Aphorisms Galore!

Law and Politics

163 aphorisms  ·  7 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/lvxaopme  ·  submitted 1997

The Devil's Dictionary (paperback)

Accuse: To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged them.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/fiog0z7u  ·  submitted 1997

The Devil's Dictionary (paperback)

Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted into each others' pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Law and Politics and War and Peace

tiny.ag/zcjracxo  ·  submitted 1997

Diplomacy: The patriotic art of lying for one's country.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/vkpbru1q  ·  submitted 1997

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary, "patriotism" is defined as the last resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit that it is the first.

Ambrose Bierce, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/sp9ytcxh  ·  submitted 1997

The Devil's Dictionary (paperback)

Vote: The instrument and symbol of a free man's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/16qnix2l  ·  submitted 1997

To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.

Otto von Bismarck, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/7pr2vmql  ·  submitted 1998 by Edward Wayne Blakeman

Nowadays it's not as important for voters to know what a politician has done as what he or she hasn't done.

Edward Blakeman, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/hjlqxeds  ·  submitted 1997

In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.

Christian Nevell Bovee, (from Politicians and Other Scoundrels by Ferdinand Lundberg), in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/yvxqb7s2  ·  submitted 1999

It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not the opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed the same kind.

George Bernard, in Law and Politics and Life and Death

tiny.ag/y2yzkpwq  ·  submitted 1997

It is odd, is it not, that a person's worth to society is measured by their wealth, when instead their wealth should be measured by their worth to society.

A. Cygni, in Law and Politics and Wealth and Poverty

tiny.ag/4rllto8y  ·  submitted 1999 by Felton Davis, Jr.

If half the lawyers would become plumbers, two of man's biggest problems would be solved.

Felton Davis, Jr., "Reflections on the Lake," published in The Gainesville Times (GA), in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/ebp3wveo  ·  submitted 1997

No great advance has ever been made in science, politics, or religion, without controversy.

Lyman Beecher, in Law and Politics and Science and Religion

tiny.ag/k0emebpg  ·  submitted 2011 by peter

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Neil Postman, in Wisdom and Ignorance and Law and Politics

tiny.ag/h54z3wxd  ·  submitted 1997

Voters are people who have the God-given right to decide who will waste their money for them.

Unknown, (from Politicians and Other Scoundrels by Ferdinand Lundberg), in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/ywjorl1b  ·  submitted 1997

When the government fears the people, we have liberty. When the people fear the government, we have tyranny.

Unknown, in Altruism and Cynicism and Law and Politics

tiny.ag/eqxg4ask  ·  submitted 1997

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding bureaucracy.

Unknown, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/6e8jdhxa  ·  submitted 1997

To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles.

Unknown, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/avjgt67o  ·  submitted 1997

Politics makes strange bedfellows stranger.

Unknown, (from Politicians and Other Scoundrels by Ferdinand Lundberg), in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/py1kf0oz  ·  submitted 1997

Rule of Defactualization: Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.

Unknown, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/ihluxzog  ·  submitted 1997

Quigley's Law: Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will attempt to use it.

Unknown, in Law and Politics