Aphorisms Galore!

Law and Politics

163 aphorisms  ·  7 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/yfwenbfh  ·  submitted 1997

Capitalism is the unequal distribution of wealth -- communism is the equal distribution of poverty.

Unknown, in Law and Politics

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/vdyroj5m  ·  submitted 1997

What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?

Bertolt Brecht, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/nsami72o  ·  submitted 1997

I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.

Ashleigh Brilliant, Brilliant Thoughts (copyright info: www.ashleighbrilliant.com), in Altruism and Cynicism and Law and Politics

tiny.ag/toiqhdlg  ·  submitted 1997

Anybody who wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.

David Broder, 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/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/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/x9dblm0j  ·  submitted 1997

There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.

Isaac Bashevis Singer, in Law and Politics