Politics

Robert Abelson (in Beliefs are like possessions, 1986) - Beliefs are objects which provide values to their owners. The bases for these values have little to do with the probable truth of the beliefs. This is a crucial fact both psychologically and sociopolitically. Competitions between ideologies depend substantially upon which belief system provides greater value to its proponents. The analysis of the ebb and flow of the values of various beliefs is an important connection between individual psychology and mass politics.

Daron Acemoglu & James Robinson - History is full of examples of revolutions and radical movements replacing one tyranny with another, in a pattern that the German sociologist Robert Michels dubbed the iron law of oligarchy, a particularly pernicious form of the vicious circle.

Henry Adams - Politics are the systematic organization of hatreds.

Scott Adams - When one person doesn't understand economics, we call it ignorance. When millions don't, we call it a political movement.

Anne Applebaum - The point of the posters was not to convince people of a falsehood. The point was to demonstrate the party’s power to proclaim and promulgate a falsehood. Sometimes the point isn’t to make people believe a lie—it’s to make people fear the liar.

Raymond Aron (in Introduction à la philosophie politique, 1952) - L’adoration des pouvoirs est une des tentations permanentes des hommes, et cela pour une raison simple : il est insupportable d’obéir sans se donner une justification quasi méta-physique de l’obéissance. 

Raymond Aron - Those who think that peoples will act out of self interest instead of following their passions have not understood anything to the history of the twentieth century. (French original: Ceux qui croient que les peuples suivront leurs intérêts plutôt que leurs passions n’ont rien compris au XXe siècle.)

Walter Bagehot - The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that on the whole, it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does more good or harm.

Frédéric Bastiat - The State is the great fiction through which everyone tries to live off everyone. (French original: L'État, c'est la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s’efforce de vivre aux dépens de tout le monde.)

Julien Benda (in La trahison des clercs, 1927) - Those who lead men in material conquests have no care for justice or charity. French original: Ceux qui conduisent les hommes à la conquête des choses n'ont que faire de la justice et de la charité.

Sir Ernest Benn (1875-1954) - Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedy.

Milton Berle - A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours. 

Milton Berle - You can lead a man to Congress, but you can't make him think.

Isaiah Berlin - In fact compromises are usually reached only after various factions fight and fight until they can no more, and the dreadful cost leads men to realisation that they must learn to tolerate each other. It is very difficult to get people to tolerate each other unless they have tried intolerance and failed. This is a melancholy reflection on human character.

Isaiah Berlin - What people evidently adore (...) is being slaughtered together for some unintellegible ideal.

Ambrose Bierce (in The Devil's Dictionary, 1911) - Conservative (n.) A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

Otto von Bismarck (1867) - Politics is the art of the possible. German original: Die Politik ist die Lehre vom Möglichen.

Josh Billings (The Kicker, ca 1870) -

The wheel that squeaks the loudest

Is the one that gets the grease.

Gurwinder Bhogal - The far-right is nostalgic for a world that never was. The far-left is hopeful for a world that can never be.

Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (in Histoire des variations des Eglises protestantes, 1688) - Dieu se rit des prières qu'on lui fait pour détourner les malheurs publics, quand on ne s'oppose pas à ce qui se fait pour les attirer. Que dis-je ? quand on l'approuve et qu'on y souscrit, quoique ce soit avec répugnance. Commonly misquoted as: Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes.

Kenneth Boulding (1966) - There is a great deal of evidence that almost all organizational structures tend to produce false images in the decision-maker, and that the larger and more authoritarian the organization, the better the chance that its top decision-makers will be operating in purely imaginary worlds.

Attributed to Bertold Brecht - All power comes from the people. But where does it go?

Bertold Brecht (Die Lösung, 1953) - Would it not be easier (...) for the government to dissolve the people and elect another? (German original: Wäre es da/Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung/Löste das Volk auf und/Wählte ein anderes?)

Steve Bruce (in Sociology: a very short introduction) - One cannot be a serf from sunrise to sunset and a free individual for the evening and at weekends. A real serf has to be full-time.

George Burns - Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy driving taxis & cutting hair.

Christopher Caldwell (2022) - There is not really any such thing as “investigative journalism.” (...) It does not begin with a journalist hunting down a source. It begins with a disgruntled member of the power structure, eager to unload on his bureaucratic rivals, looking for a journalist to serve as an unwitting accomplice. 

Attributed to Thomas Carlyle - There was once a man called Rousseau who wrote a book containing nothing but ideas. The second edition was bound in the skins of those who laughed at the first.

Robert Caro - Although the cliché says power always corrupts, what is seldom said is that power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary. But as a man obtains more power, camouflage becomes less necessary.

John Jay Chapman (in Practical agitation, 1900) - Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

François-René de Chateaubriand (in Mémoires d'outre-tombe) - Aristocracy goes through three successive ages: first superiority, then privilege and finally vanity. Having left the first, in the second it degenerates and in the third it dies. (French original: L'aristocratie a trois âges successifs - l'âge des supériorités, l'âge des privilèges, l'âge des vanités ; sortie du premier, elle dégénère dans le second et s'éteint dans le dernier.)

François-René de Chateaubriand (in Mémoires d'outre-tombe) - Le ciel fait rarement naître ensemble l'homme qui veut et l'homme qui peut.

François Chérèque (2003) - Un compromis, ce n'est pas un renoncement; c'est toujours une étape vers les objectifs qu'on s'est fixés.

Chinese proverb - When a man gets power, even his chickens and dogs rise to heaven.

James Freeman Clarke (1870) - A politician (…) is a man who thinks of the next election; while the statesman thinks of the next generation.

Georges Clemenceau - On ne ment jamais autant qu’avant les élections, pendant la guerre et après la chasse. English translation : One never lies as much as before an election, during a war or after a hunt.

Robert Conquest - Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics: 

Sir Bernard Crick - (in In Defence Of Politics, 1962) - Boredom with established truths is a great enemy of free men.

Boris Cyrulnik - Tous les totalitarismes se déclarent en état de légitime défense. Il leur paraît normal et même moral de tuer sans honte ni culpabilité.

Theodore Dalrymple (1999) - Inside every rebel, there is a dictator trying to get out.

Attribué à Jacques Doriot (1944-45) - Quand on est allé trop loin il faut aller jusqu'au bout. English: When you have gone too far, you have to go all the way.

Frederick Douglass (August 1861) - Nations seldom listen to advice from individuals, however reasonable. They are taught less by theories than by facts and events.

Annie Duke (in Thinking in bets, 2018) - The smarter you are, the better you are at constructing a narrative that supports your beliefs, rationalizing and framing the data to fit your argument or point of view.

John Foster Dulles (1956) - The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art . . . if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost.

Clint Eastwood (as quoted by Richard Schickel, 2005) - Extremism is so easy. You’ve got your position and that’s it. It doesn’t take much thought.

Abba Eban [March 1967] - Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.

Albert Einstein - The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it.

Erasmus - Piscis primum a capite foetet. The fish rots from the head.

Benedict Evans - The right tends to be morally relativist about the past and morally absolute about the present and the left tends to be the other way round. 

Richard Feynman - I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned.

Christopher Freiman - “Life is getting worse” : right-wingers who mythologize the past [and] left-wingers who can’t accept that capitalism relentlessly improves our standard of living.

Henri Ford (Court remarks, July 1919) - An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.

Francis Fukuyama (in The End of History and the Last Man, 1992) - Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy.

John Gall (in Systemantics: How Systems Really Work and How They Fail, 1975) - A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system. (Gall's Law)

Gandhi - First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

John Kenneth Galbraith - Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the unpalatable and the disastrous.

Ernst Gellner - There is no way of running a modem society with a system of castes or estates. The one attempt to do so openly, in South Africa, also failed ignominiously.

Jonathan Haidt - The fundamental rule of political analysis from the point of psychology is, follow the sacredness, and around it is a ring of motivated ignorance.

Warren G. Harding - I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends...

Joseph Heath - When people fixate on race, they are actually not all that interested in race; what they are really interested in is group membership, and they are picking up on race because it seems like the most salient cue. Give them some other, more salient cue, and they will fixate on that.

Robert Kim Henderson - Challenging the elite is often an audition to become a member of the elite.

Eric Hoffer - In human affairs a straight line is the shortest distance to disaster.

Eric Hoffer - Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.

Eric Hoffer - The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfilment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.

Eric Hoffer (in The True Believer, 1951) - Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents...Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without belief in a devil.

Friedrich Hölderlin (in Hyperion, 1797) - What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it heaven. German original: Immerhin hat das den Staat zur Hölle gemacht, daß ihn der Mensch zu seinem Himmel machen wollte.

Frank McKinney Hubbard - Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.

Michael Huemer - Individuals derive psychological rewards from holding certain political beliefs, and since each individual suffers almost none of the harm caused by his own false political beliefs, it often makes sense to adopt those beliefs regardless of whether they are true or well-supported.

Hubert H. Humphrey - To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

Aldous Huxley - The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience  — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.

Italian proverb - Chi fa la legge servar la degge. English: Who makes the law must observe it.  French: Qui fait la loi la doit observer.

Eric Jarosinski - Ideology: the mistaken belief that your beliefs are neither beliefs nor mistaken.

Lyndon B. Johnson - What convinces is conviction.

Juvenal (in Satire X) - Panem et circenses. English: Bread and games.

Sir Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn - Politician's logic: something must be done, this is something, therefore let's do it.

Thomas Jefferson (Letter to James Madison, 30 January 1787) - A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.

Alain Juppé - Un Premier Ministre, on le lèche, on le lâche, on le lynche!

Kautilya (in Arthashastra, 300BC) - Just as it is impossible to know when a swimming fish is drinking water, so it is impossible to find out when a government servant is stealing money.

Walt Kelly (Cartoonist) - We have met the enemy and he is us.

Henry Kissinger - Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

Mitchell Landers & Daniel Sznycer - Compared with non-human animals, status in humans depends less heavily on fighting ability or readiness to submit to the powerful and more heavily on the individual's ability and willingness to confer benefits and to abide by the coordinated values of fellow group members. 

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) - People use statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - for support rather than illumination.

Harold Lasswell - Politics is who gets what, when, how.

C. S. Lewis (in The Screwtape Letters) - The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of evil that Dickens loved to paint but is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.

Mark Lilla - Revolutionaries traffic in hope. They believe, and wish others to believe, that a radical break with the past is possible and that it will inaugurate a new era of human experience. Reactionaries believe that such a break has already occurred and has been disastrous. While to the untrained eye the river of time seems to flow as it always has, the reactionary sees the debris of paradise drifting past his eyes. The revolutionary sees the radiant future, and it electrifies him. The reactionary thinks of the past in all its splendor, and he, too, is electrified. He is, he thinks, the guardian of what actually happened, not the prophet of what might be. This explains the strangely exhilarating despair that courses through reactionary literature and political rhetoric, the palpable sense of mission.

Abraham Lincoln - Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

Leo Longanesi (December 1938, published in Parliamo dell'elefante, 1947) - Marching bands, flags, parades. An idiot is an idiot. Two idiots are two idiots. Ten thousand idiots are a historical force. Italian original: Fanfare, bandiere, parate. Uno stupido è uno stupido. Due stupidi sono due stupidi. Diecimila stupidi sono una forza storica. 

J. L. Mackie (in Fallacies) - We are committing the fallacy of composition when we argue from the premise that every man can decide how he will act to the conclusion that the human race can decide how it will act.

Robert McNamara (2003) - Never say never. And secondly, never answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked of you. 

Robert Michels (in Political Parties, 1911) - Who says organization, says oligarchy.

Terry Moe - In the economic system, organizations are generally designed by participants who want them to succeed. In the political system, public bureaucracies are [the product of compromise] and designed in no small measure by participants who explicitly want them to fail.

Michel de Montaigne - Plus haut monte le singe, plus il montre son cul.

Charles Louis de Secondat de Montesquieu (in De l’esprit des lois, 1748) : C’est une expérience éternelle que tout homme qui a du pouvoir est porté à en abuser : il va jusqu’à ce qu’il trouve des limites. Pour qu’on ne puisse abuser du pouvoir, il faut que, par la disposition des choses, le pouvoir arrête le pouvoir.

Edmund S. Morgan (in Inventing the People, 1988) - Government requires make-believe (...) Make believe that the king is divine, make believe that he can do no wrong or make believe that the voice of the people is the voice of God. Make believe that the people have a voice or make believe that the representatives of the people are the people.

George Orwell (in The Prevention of Literature, 1946) - A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable.

Terry Pratchett  - Satire is meant to ridicule power. If you are laughing at people who are hurting, it is not satire, it is bullying.

Byron Price (1932) - All politics is local.

Charles Proctor, lawyer - If you want to make something happen that is generally a question of politics, if you want to prevent something that is a question of law.

Henri Queuille - La politique ne consiste pas à résoudre les problèmes mais à faire taire ceux qui les posent.

Henri Queuille - Il n'est pas de problème dont une absence de solution ne finisse par venir à bout.

Ayn Rand (in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 1966) - Remember also that the smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

Ronald Reagan (1981 inaugural address) - Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

Joan Robinson - No one (...) is conscious of his own ideology, any more than he can smell his own breath.

Bertrand Russell (1928) - The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists.

Bertrand Russell (in Freedom of the Colleges, 1940) - The fundamental difference between the liberal and the illiberal outlook is that the former regards all questions as open to discussion and all opinions as open to a greater or less measure of doubt, while the latter holds in advance that certain opinions are absolutely unquestionable, and that no argument against them must be allowed to be heard. What is curious about this position is the belief that if impartial investigation were permitted, it would lead men to the wrong conclusion, and that ignorance is, therefore, the only safeguard against error. This point of view is one which cannot be accepted by any man who wishes reason rather than prejudice to govern human action.

Bertrand Russell (in Unpopular Essays, 1950) - The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.

Bertrand Russell (in How to become a man of genius, 1932) - Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.

Mort Sahl - A conservative is someone who believes in reform. But not now.

Helmut Schmidt (letter to a student council, 2009) - Anyone having visions should see a doctor. German original: Wer Visionen hat, soll zum Arzt gehen.

E. F. Schumacher (in Small is Beautiful, 1973) - Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon (propos qu'il attribue au Maréchal de Villeroi, 1644-1730) - Il fallait tenir le pot de chambre aux ministres tant qu’ils étaient en puissance, et le leur renverser sur la tête sitôt qu’on s’apercevait que le pied commençait à leur glisser.

General Gerhard von Scharnhorst - Those who seek to defend everything defend nothing.

Joseph Schumpeter (1952) - The typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues & analyses in a way that he would readily recognise as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. He becomes a primitive again.

Tali Sharot (2017) - People with stronger analytic abilities are more likely to twist data at will than people with low reasoning ability.

George Bernard Shaw (1944) - A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

Harry Shearer - If you're looking for morals in politics you're looking for bananas in the cheese department.

Allan Sherman (in A Gift of Laughter, 1965) - The difference between reality and unreality is that reality has so little to recommend it.

Adam Smith - There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.

Adam Smith (in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776)- [The] exertions of natural liberty of a few individuals which might endanger the security of the whole society are, and ought to be, restrained by laws of all govts, of the most free as well as of the most despotic.

Thomas Sowell - How can anyone read history and still trust politicians?

Thomas Sowell - (in Intellectuals and Society, 2010) - It is far easier to concentrate power than to concentrate knowledge. That is why so much social engineering backfires and why so many despots have led their countries into disasters.

Thomas Sowell (in Is Reality Optional? and Other Essays, 1993) - The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

Thomas Sowell - [Activism is] a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.

Thomas Sowell - No nation ever protested its way from poverty to prosperity or got there through rhetoric or bureaucracies.

Thomas Sowell - No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems—of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.

Thomas Sowell - Politicians can solve almost any problem — usually by creating a bigger problem. But, so long as the voters are aware of the problem that the politicians have solved, and unaware of the bigger problems they have created, political "solutions" are a political success.

Thomas Sowell - It is so easy to be wrong—and to persist in being wrong—when the costs of being wrong are paid by others.

Thomas Sowell - Liberals take positions that make them look good and feel good — and show very little interest in the actual consequences for others, even when liberal policies are leaving havoc in their wake.

Thomas Sowell - The great ideological divide is between those who believe that theories should be adjusted to reality and those who believe that reality must be adjusted to fit their theories. Many of the horrors of the 20th century were created by the latter.

Thomas Sowell - Human beings are going to make mistakes, whether in the market or in the government. The difference is that survival in the market requires recognizing mistakes and changing course before you go bankrupt. But survival in politics requires denying mistakes and sticking with the policies you advocated, while blaming others for the bad results.

Thomas Sowell - There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.

John Spaulding (2021) - Libertarians are like housecats. They are convinced of their fierce independance while utterly dependant on a system they don't appreciate or understand.

Herbert Spencer [1891] - The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.

Gloria Steinem - If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot?

Lawrence Summers - Some of the worst abuses of power are not those that leaders inflict on their people. They are the acts that the people demand from their leaders.

Lawrence Summers (Oct 17th, 2019) - Most of what is wrong with politics is because that is what the people want.

Rory Sutherland (in Alchemy, 2019) - The more data you have, the easier it is to find support for some spurious, self-serving narrative. The profusion of data in future will not settle arguments: it will make them worse.

Alex Tabarrok - The law of unintended consequences is what happens when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system.  The political system is simple, it operates with limited information (rational ignorance), short time horizons, low feedback, and poor and misaligned incentives.  Society in contrast is a complex, evolving, high-feedback, incentive-driven system.  When a simple system tries to regulate a complex system you often get unintended consequences.

Tacitus (Annals III-27) - The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government. (Latin original: Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges; French: Jamais les lois ne furent plus multipliées que quand l'État fut le plus corrompu).

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (in The Black Swan, 2007) - Forecasting by bureaucrats tends to be used for anxiety relief rather than for adequate policy making.

Edward Teach - Bullying succeeds because the bully doesn't care about society's rules while the victim is castrated by them.

Hunter S. Thomson (Better than Sex, 22 August 1994) - Not everybody is comfortable with the idea that politics is a guilty addiction. But it is.

Alexis de Tocqueville (in Souvenirs) - In politics, friendhips are nearly always based on shared hatreds. (French original: En politique, la communauté des haines fait presque toujours le fond des amitiés.)

Alexis de Tocqueville (in L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution, 1856) - Le moment le plus dangereux pour un mauvais gouvernement est d'ordinaire celui où il commence à se réformer.

Alexis de Tocqueville - Quelle triste chose que sur toute la terre les gouvernements soient toujours précisément aussi coquins que les mœurs de leurs sujets peuvent leur permettre de l'être !

Traditional - Governing means disappointing. (French original: Gouverner, c’est décevoir.)

Traditional - There is nothing as permanent as a temporary government measure.

Traditional (The middle ground fallacy) - If one person says the sky is blue, but someone else says it’s yellow, that doesn’t mean the sky is green. 

Leon Trotsky - You say you are not interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.

Eric Valatini - Famous units include: the millimeter (for distance), the milligram (for weight) and the militant (for intelligence). (French original : Les unités célèbres: il y a le millimètre (distance), le milligramme (poids) et le militant (intelligence).)

Paul Valéry (in Fluctuations sur la liberté, 1938) - Si l’État est fort, il nous écrase. S’il est faible, nous périssons.

Attributed to Gore Vidal - "Great leaders" make great wars.

Voltaire (in Candide) - Ceux qui se mêlent des affaires publiques périssent quelquefois misérablement.

Voltaire (in Questions sur les miracles, 1765) - Ceux qui peuvent vous faire croire en des absurdités pourront vous faire commettre des atrocités. English : Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. Hugo Mercier : Voltaire had it backwards: it is wanting to commit atrocities that makes you believe absurdities.

Joseph de Weck (2021) - Souvent, les idées divisent plus encore que la réalité.

George Will (The Washington Post, 2020 06 25) - A nation’s gravest problems are those it cannot discuss because it dare not state them. This nation’s principal problem, which makes other serious problems intractable, is that much of today’s intelligentsia is not intelligent.

Frank Wilhoit - Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect...

Yiddish saying - One lie is a lie, two lies are lies, but three lies is politics (original: Ainer iz a ligen, tsvai iz ligens, drei iz politik).

Yiddish saying - Neither with curses nor with laughter can you change the world (original: Nit mit shelten un nit mit lachen ken men di velt ibermachen).

Yiddish saying - What use is wisdom when folly reigns? (original: Vos toyg di khokhme az narishkeyt gilt?)