Aphorisms Galore!

Law and Politics

163 aphorisms  ·  7 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

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/4rllto8y  ·  submitted 1999 by Felton Davis, Jr.

If half the lawyers would become plumbers, two of man's biggest problems would be solved.

Felton Davis, Jr., "Reflections on the Lake," published in The Gainesville Times (GA), in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/o2nztemh  ·  submitted 1997

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.

Albert Einstein, 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

tiny.ag/mnbumpv1  ·  submitted 1997

No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.

William Cowper, in Law and Politics and Wealth and Poverty

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

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/y2yzkpwq  ·  submitted 1997

It is odd, is it not, that a person's worth to society is measured by their wealth, when instead their wealth should be measured by their worth to society.

A. Cygni, in Law and Politics and Wealth and Poverty

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/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

tiny.ag/lkzomlnc  ·  submitted 1997

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.

George Jean Nathan, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/8zhrldax  ·  submitted 1997

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency.

Eugene McCarthy, 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/rzbaoshp  ·  submitted 1997

Crime does not pay... as well as politics.

A. E. Newman, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/ihlpkath  ·  submitted 1997

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

Napoleon, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/egbcyknm  ·  submitted 1997

America is a fortunate country. She grows by the follies of our European nations.

Napoleon, in Law and Politics

tiny.ag/5nmog9yu  ·  submitted 1997

Beyond Good and Evil (paperback)

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, in Law and Politics