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/zlqsqb5b  ·  submitted 1997

Legislators: Rape their wives and do two years. Kill their children and do five years. Steal their money and kiss your ass goodbye.

L. R. Powell, in Law and Politics

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/3ygthmd0  ·  submitted 1997

Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.

Laurence J. Peter, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/xyjkqvgn  ·  submitted 1997

Politician: From the Greek "poly" ("many") and the French "tête" ("head" or "face," as in "tête-à-tête": head to head or face to face). Hence "polytetien," a person of two or more faces.

Martin Pitt, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/yosfdtrk  ·  submitted 1997

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/czhkruer  ·  submitted 1997

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.

Robert Orben, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/m9k0otpw  ·  submitted 1997

1984 (paperback)

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

George Orwell, 1984, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/jx4okg6p  ·  submitted 1999 by Michael A. Loduha

When skunks duel, wind direction is everything.

Michael A. Loduha, (on environmental factors in legal cases vs. the attorneys' skills; from a lecture series), in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/hkxwed3k  ·  submitted 1997

At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer.

Marshall Lumsden, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/5sv6lujm  ·  submitted 1998

Every nation has the government it deserves.

Joseph de Maistre, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/bv7l94mp  ·  submitted 1997

When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.

Nelson Mandela, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/vyciqzog  ·  submitted 1997

We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police.

Jeff Marder, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/h8oiwuf7  ·  submitted 1997

Philosophers have merely interpreted the world. The point is to change it.

Karl Marx, in Law and Politics and Wisdom and Ignorance