Aphorisms Galore!

Law and Politics

163 aphorisms  ·  7 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/raffprlg  ·  submitted 1997

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.

Abraham Lincoln, 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/jjhww8cq  ·  submitted 1997

I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.

Voltaire, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/f4xotdy1  ·  submitted 1997

I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.

Voltaire, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/r1fscizb  ·  submitted 1997

University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.

Henry Kissinger, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/vruohmzb  ·  submitted 1997

Politics is the means by which the will of the few becomes the will of the many.

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

tiny.ag/jy8gye2w  ·  submitted 1997

Those who rule the symbols rule us.

Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity, 1933 (4th ed., 1958), in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/m6lj8yot  ·  submitted 1997

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions -- it only guarantees equality of opportunity.

Irving Kristol, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/sneiqva0  ·  submitted 1997

The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.

Lao Tsu, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/cjhepgxr  ·  submitted 1997

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

Henry David Thoreau, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/yuvqmpjc  ·  submitted 1997

Men make history, and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

Harry S Truman, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/a1rdjbky  ·  submitted 1997

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman, 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/2flecxec  ·  submitted 1997

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

John F. Kennedy, (inaugural speech, 1961), in Law and Politics and War and Peace

tiny.ag/uvkikrxz  ·  submitted 1997

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

John F. Kennedy, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/knhyutua  ·  submitted 1997

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education.

John F. Kennedy, in Law and Politics and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/d7wzdup5  ·  submitted 1997

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

John F. Kennedy, in Law and Politics