Aphorisms Galore!

Law and Politics

163 aphorisms  ·  7 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

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/gt1zngj3  ·  submitted 1998

There exists among humans no natural authority, only that established for convenience.

John Teeple, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/r8irgp4q  ·  submitted 1997

Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.

I. F. Stone, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/mvz0j45c  ·  submitted 1997

A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.

Caskie Stinnett, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/i6fve9yg  ·  submitted 1997

In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.

Adlai Stevenson, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/dnnrwvkr  ·  submitted 1997

A free society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular.

Adlai Stevenson, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/yxe7ui5g  ·  submitted 1997

A nation ... is just a society for hating foreigners.

Olaf Stapledon, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/c3jsrgej  ·  submitted 1997

The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.

Art Spander, in 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

tiny.ag/kxvl7q1s  ·  submitted 1997

Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

George Bernard Shaw, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/hgomu6th  ·  submitted 1997

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

William Shakespeare, Henry VI, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/4awpxubp  ·  submitted 1997

Every nation ridicules other nations -- and all are right.

Arthur Schopenhauer, 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/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/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/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/5agdml7e  ·  submitted 1997

Even Napoleon had his Watergate.

Yogi Berra, (on Frenchmen in American politics), in Law and Politics

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