Aphorisms Galore!

Law and Politics

163 aphorisms  ·  7 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/s0wufote  ·  submitted 1997

He who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

Thomas Paine, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/zzcxms0q  ·  submitted 1997

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.

Mark Twain, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/yh5kxuzq  ·  submitted 1997

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

Mark Twain, (inscription beneath his bust in the Hall of Fame), in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/mwoxawkr  ·  submitted 1997

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

Mark Twain, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/weoyuknk  ·  submitted 1997

Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.

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

tiny.ag/is5ffzu6  ·  submitted 1997

A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election.

Bill Vaughan, in Law and Politics and War and Peace

tiny.ag/if7zb5ls  ·  submitted 1997

Bad policies, stupid policies, gutless policies have real consequences.

Molly Ivins, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/64hrko9k  ·  submitted 1997

I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Thomas Jefferson, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/7u0qrtca  ·  submitted 1999 by Sugar

If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.

Thomas Jefferson, in Law and Politics and Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/g1wxfjbw  ·  submitted 1997

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

Thomas Jefferson, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/kge2ejcq  ·  submitted 1997

It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.

David Hume, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/uz9atcqm  ·  submitted 1997

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

Hubert H. Humphrey, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/b5nmoo2s  ·  submitted 1997 by James Menzies

Mein Kampf (paperback)

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see Paradise as Hell; and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as Paradise.

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/xu5z217a  ·  submitted 1997

What luck for the rulers that men do not think.

Adolf Hitler, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/v1p3a7wp  ·  submitted 1997

Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins.

Zechariah Chafee, "Freedom of Speech in Wartime", Harvard Law Review, vol. 32, pp. 932–957 (1919), in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/c3fgjq70  ·  submitted 1997

Justice is incidental to law and order.

J. Edgar Hoover, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/svgptnqb  ·  submitted 1997

The people must fight for their laws as for their walls.

Heraclitus, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/lctsfa7d  ·  submitted 1997

Politics is like a race horse. A good jockey must know how to fall with the least possible damage.

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

tiny.ag/lgkszg2d  ·  submitted 1997

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin, in Law and Politics and War and Peace

tiny.ag/otueqvds  ·  submitted 1997

A man who seeks truth and loves it must be reckoned precious to any human society.

Frederick the Great, in Law and Politics