Aphorisms Galore!

Law and Politics

163 aphorisms  ·  7 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

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/3hmwb2tb  ·  submitted 1997

Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.

Will Rogers, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/e5isa1rp  ·  submitted 1997

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

Will Rogers, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/czwb1kco  ·  submitted 1997

Free people, remember this maxim: We may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/flwibuot  ·  submitted 1997

Frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or laziness on the part of a government.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/ts0c3ysu  ·  submitted 1997

Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/phtkn2xv  ·  submitted 1997

Counterfeit exists because there is such a thing as real gold.

Jelaluddin Rumi, 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/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/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/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/ut6ks243  ·  submitted 1997

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

Thomas Jefferson, 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/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/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/5agdml7e  ·  submitted 1997

Even Napoleon had his Watergate.

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