Fede aforismer

Aforismer er fascinerende, og du kan finde et enormt udvalg af dem på: https://www.azquotes.com/   Herfra kan jeg anbefale mesteren over dem alle: Stanislaw J. Lec, G. B. Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Groucho Marx, W. C. Fields og mange mange andre…

En del aforismer fra siden har umiddelbart bragt bl.a. Putin eller Trump i tankerne. De følger herunder og er interessante, da forfatterne ofte ikke har oplevet de to.

Putin:

"Violent nationalism, otherwise known as imperialism, is a curse." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

"Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

"War with all its glorification of brute force is essentially a degrading thing." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

"Tyrants preserve themselves by sowing fear and mistrust among the citizens by means of spies, by distracting them with foreign wars, by eliminating men of spirit who might lead a revolution, by humbling the people, and making them incapable of decisive action." ~ Aristotle

"You can't shake hands with a closed fist." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

"When we dehumanise and demonise our opponents, we abandon the possibility of peacefully resolving our differences, and seek to justify violence against them." ~ Nelson Mandela

"There is no future without forgiveness" ~ Nelson Mandela

"Great anger and violence can never build a nation." ~ Nelson Mandela

"The best weapon is to sit down and talk." ~ Nelson Mandela

"There is nothing more dangerous than a humiliated man." ~ Nelson Mandela

"It is not our diversity which divides us; it is not our ethnicity, or religion or culture that divides us. Since we have achieved our freedom, there can only be one division amongst us: between those who cherish democracy and those who do not." ~ Nelson Mandela

"It is so easy to break down and destroy.  The heroes are those who make peace and  build." ~ Nelson Mandela

"No form of violence can ever be excused in a society that wishes to call itself decent" ~ Nelson Mandela

"If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner." ~ Nelson Mandela

"People respond in accordance to how you relate to them. If you approach them on the basis of violence, that's how they'll react. But if you say, 'We want peace, we want stability,' we can then do a lot of things that will contribute towards the progress of our society." ~ Nelson Mandela

"The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us." ~ Nelson Mandela

"A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy. The press must be free from state interference. It must have the economic strength to stand up to the blandishments of government officials. It must have sufficient independence from vested interests to be bold and inquiring without fear or favour. It must enjoy the protection of the constitution, so that it can protect our rights as citizens." ~ Nelson Mandela

"One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself, I could not change others." ~ Nelson Mandela

"You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution." ~ Nelson Mandela

"I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity." ~ Nelson Mandela

"The motto of war is: "Let the strong survive; let the weak die." The motto of peace is: "Let the strong help the weak to survive."" ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The value of love will always be stronger than the value of hate. Any nation or group of nations which employs hatred eventually is torn to pieces by hatred." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn "reasonable" and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive." ~ Sinclair Lewis

"Beware of the words "internal security," for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor." ~ Voltaire

"It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster." ~ Voltaire

"To the wicked, everything serves as pretext." ~ Voltaire

"War is the greatest of all crimes; and yet there is no aggressor who does not color his crime with the pretext of justice." ~ Voltaire

"So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbors. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer." ~ Voltaire

"Dictatorships start wars because they need external enemies to exert internal control over their own people." ~ Richard Perle

"Dictatorships sometimes fall unexpectedly and quickly. And [Vladimir] Putin knows that for him, the loss of power doesn't mean a comfortable retirement, but something completely different." ~ Garry Kasparov

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor." ~ William Shakespeare

"An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war." ~ Baron de Montesquieu

"Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind." ~ Francois Rabelais

"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice." ~ Baron de Montesquieu

"I prefer the sign NO ENTRANCE to the sign which says NO EXIT." ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

"Love of one's country recognizes no frontiers... of other countries." ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

"Any government is evil if it carries within it the tendency to deteriorate into Tyranny. The danger of such deterioration is more acute in a country in which the government has authority not only over the armed forces but also over every channel of education and information." ~ Albert Einstein

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." ~ Albert Einstein

"A tyranny based on ... deception and maintained by terror must inevitably perish from the poison it generates within itself." ~ Albert Einstein

"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding." ~ Albert Einstein

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

"In two weeks the sheeplike masses of any country can be worked up by the newspapers into such a state of excited fury that men are prepared to put on uniforms and kill and be killed, for the sake of the sordid ends of a few interested parties. Compulsory military service seems to me the most disgraceful symptom of that deficiency in personal dignity from which civilized mankind is suffering today." ~ Albert Einstein

"Nationalism, on my opinion, is nothing more than an idealistic rationalization for militarism and aggression. It is a childrens’ disease; the measles of mankind." ~ Albert Einstein

"It would seem that men always need some idiotic fiction in the name of which they can hate one another. Once it was religion. Now it is the State." ~ Albert Einstein

"Older men start wars, but younger men fight them." ~ Albert Einstein

"So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbors. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer." ~ Voltaire

"You need Power, only when you want to do something harmful otherwise Love is enough to get everything done." ~ Charlie Chaplin

Trump:

"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." ~ H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

"When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. I'm beginning to believe it." ~ Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)

"The world is made up for the most part of morons and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in their own opinions, never doubting anything." ~ Clarence Darrow

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." ~ Bertrand Russell

"The more you know, the less sure you are." ~ Voltaire

"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth." ~ H. L. Mencken

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

"More striking still, it appeared that, if the process of concentration goes on at the same rate, at the end of another century we shall have all American industry controlled by a dozen corporations and run by perhaps a hundred men. Put plainly, we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Freedom of the press is essential to the preservation of a democracy; but there is a difference between freedom and license. Editorialists who tell downright lies in order to advance their own agendas do more to discredit the press than all the censors in the world." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other." ~ Bertrand Russell

"The fate of America cannot depend on any one man. The greatness of America is grounded in principles and not on any single personality." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

"There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole thought is the welfare of the United States of America. No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H. L. Mencken

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." ~ H. L. Mencken

"There's no underestimating the intelligence of the American public." ~ H. L. Mencken

"People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?" ~ H. L. Mencken

"The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." ~ H. L. Mencken

"Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people." ~ H. L. Mencken

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." ~ Albert Einstein

"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre." ~ H. L. Mencken

"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican." ~ H. L. Mencken

"Freedom of press is limited to those who own one." ~ H. L. Mencken

"Anyone can spot a lie, unless he is in need of that lie." ~ Clarence Darrow

"I knew that it is out of the question to have honest, economical government while a few are inordinately rich and the great mass of men are poor. In fact, it is to be doubted if anything really worthwhile can be done until there is a fairer distribution of wealth." ~ Clarence Darrow

In 2024, the number of billionaires rose to 2,769, up from 2,565 in 2023. Their combined wealth surged from $13 trillion to $15 trillion in just 12 months. This is the second largest annual increase in billionaire wealth since records began. The wealth of the world’s ten richest men grew on average by almost $100 million a day~ Oxfam 20.01.25

"The beauty of me is that I'm very rich." ~ Donald Trump

"Dont think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money." ~ Voltaire

"Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed." ~ Albert Einstein

"The world tells us to seek success, power and money; God tells us to seek humility, service and love." ~ Pope Francis

"In my opinion, every rich man is a miser." ~ Michel de Montaigne

"A nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous." ~ Barack Obama

"Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage." ~ Ambrose Bierce

"When fascism comes to the United States it will be wrapped in the American flag and will claim the name of 100-percent Americanism" ~ Sinclair Lewis

"Violent nationalism, otherwise known as imperialism, is a curse." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

"Truth without humility would be an arrogant caricature." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

"If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace." ~ Nelson Mandela

"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices." ~ Voltaire

"The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom." ~ Voltaire

"Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying?" ~ Voltaire

"Beware of the words "internal security," for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor." ~ Voltaire

"The tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor." ~ Voltaire

"The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third." ~ Voltaire

"So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbors. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer." ~ Voltaire

"The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded." ~ Baron de Montesquieu

"Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders." ~ Denis Diderot

"Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control." ~ Denis Diderot

"Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience." ~ Mark Twain

"There's nothing more dangerous than a resourceful idiot." ~ Scott Adams

"Beware of those who try to sell you simple answers to complex questions." ~ Scott Adams

"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand." ~ Bertrand Russell

"The worst things in history have happened when people stop thinking for themselves, especially when they allow themselves to be influenced by negative people. That's what gives rise to dictators. Avoid that at all costs. Stop it first on a personal level, and you will have contributed to world sanity as well as your own." ~ Donald Trump

"Embrace with tender affection the whole of humanity, especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important." ~ Pope Francis

"Anyone who endorses violence, hatred or oppression is not welcome in America and never, ever will be!" ~ Donald Trump

"Your true character is most accurately measured by how you treat those who can do 'Nothing' for you" ~ Mother Teresa

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." ~ Mother Teresa

"Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts." ~ E. B. White

"Condemnation before investigation is the highest form of ignorance." ~ Albert Einstein

"We should look long and carefully at ourselves before we pass judgement on others." ~ Moliere

"Vilify! Vilify! Some of it will always stick." ~ Pierre Beaumarchais

"Extreme justice is often injustice." ~ Jean Racine

"All the brains in the world are powerless against the sort of stupidity that is in fashion." ~ Jean de La Fontaine

"Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire." ~ Jean de La Fontaine

"Dressed in the lion's skin, the ass spread terror far and wide." ~ Jean de La Fontaine

"From a distance it is something; and nearby it is nothing." ~ Jean de La Fontaine

"He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak." ~ Michel de Montaigne

"On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom." ~ Michel de Montaigne

"Only the fools are certain and assured." ~ Michel de Montaigne

"Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd." ~ Bertrand Russell

"Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?" ~ Bertrand Russell

"Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false." ~ Bertrand Russell

"What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind." ~ William Shakespeare

"Desperate times breed desperate measures" ~ William Shakespeare

"A knowledge of thyself will preserve thee from vanity." ~ Miguel de Cervantes

"How will he who does not know how to govern himself know how to govern others?" ~ Miguel de Cervantes

"Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within." ~ Miguel de Cervantes

"There are two kinds of people in this world, my grandmother used to say: the Have's and the Have-not's, and she stuck to the Have's. And today, Señor Don Quixote, people are more interested in having than in knowing. An ass covered with gold makes a better impression than a horse with a packsaddle." ~ Miguel de Cervantes

"To be good to the vile is to throw water into the sea." ~ Miguel de Cervantes

"One of the effects of fear is to disturb the senses and cause things to appear other than what they are." ~ Miguel de Cervantes

"Be not under the dominion of thine own will; it is the vice of the ignorant, who vainly presume on their own understanding." ~ Miguel de Cervantes

"A closed mouth catches no flies." ~ Miguel de Cervantes

"When one reaches absolute power, one loses total contact with reality." ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

"The people of the United States are one of the people I most admire in the world. The only thing I don't understand is why a country that manages to do so well cannot do better in choosing its president." ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014)

"Liberty... is there only when there is no abuse of power." ~ Baron de Montesquieu

"Trade is the best cure for prejudice." ~ Baron de Montesquieu

"Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments." ~ Baron de Montesquieu

"Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition." ~ Baron de Montesquieu

"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid." ~ Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

"This [the U.S. Constitution] is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism... when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"If the State does not acquire supremacy over [vast private] enterprises, it becomes their puppet, and they become the real State." ~ Bertrand Russell

"I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management." ~ E. B. White

"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers." ~ James Thurber

"History is replete with proofs, from Cato the Elder to Kennedy the Younger, that if you scratch a statesman you find an actor, but it is becoming harder and harder, in our time, to tell government from show business." ~ James Thurber

"Prejudices are what fools use for reason." ~ Voltaire

"When reasons are weak, attitudes stiffen." ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

"On the top of each peak you are on the edge of the abyss" ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

"The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance" ~ Albert Einstein

"There is no vaccine against stupidity." ~ Albert Einstein

"Knowledge and ego are directly related. The less knowledge, the greater the ego" ~ Albert Einstein

"The height of stupidity is most clearly demonstrated by the individual who ridicules something he knows nothing about." ~ Albert Einstein

"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs." ~ Albert Einstein

"The true measure of a man is the degree to which he has managed to subjugate his ego." ~ Albert Einstein

"Some drink deeply from the river of knowledge. Others only gargle." ~ Woody Allen

"You need Power, only when you want to do something harmful otherwise Love is enough to get everything done." ~ Charlie Chaplin

"Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded." ~ Charlie Chaplin

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

Miljøet:

Intet snefnug tager ansvaret for lavinen. ~ Stanislaw J. Lec

Den, der vælger at gå med skyklapper, skal lige huske, at både tøjler og pisk er en del af sættet. ~ Stanislaw J. Lec.

Vi vil gøre alt for vores børn - her og nu. Men vi vil ikke give dem en verden, der er værd at leve i, når vi engang er døde. ~ Eske Willerslev.

"One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen." ~ Nelson Mandela

"I say to all those leaders, do not look the other way. Do not hesitate... It is within your power to avoid a genocide of humanity." ~ Nelson Mandela

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." ~ Albert Einstein

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity." ~ Albert Einstein

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." ~ Albert Einstein

"Anyone who thinks science is trying to make human life easier or more pleasant is utterly mistaken." ~ Albert Einstein

"It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it." ~ Albert Einstein

Steincke:

Den danske K. K. Steincke (1880-1963) var en socialdemokratisk politiker og hovedarkitekt bag den store socialreform fra 1933, der førte til det danske velfærdssamfund.

Han havde en særlig evne til at affatte aforismer, hvor menneskelige problematikker bliver formuleret kort og skarpt. Han udgav i 1940’erne og 1950’erne en række bind af disse.

Her følger et udvalg af dem.

Jeg har bevaret Steinckes retskrivning i aforismerne.

Hvad troer De egentlig på?

-      På den menneskelige Fejghed og Lurvethed!

-      Vrøvl! Troen vedrører kun det, man ikke ser. Man kan tro på den menneskelige Godhed.

Nær Familie har det godt sammen, når den ikke er sammen.

Ingen er så modig som den fejge, når han er anonym.

Når hans Hjerte tilsagde ham at give noget bort, overvejede han altid, med hvor lidt han kunne nøjes.

Jeg render ustandselig på den fødte Taler. Den fødte tænker er jeg derimod aldrig stødt på.

Demokratiet foretrækker Kundskaber for Viljestyrke, Intelligens for Karakter, men den Graver, der ikke stiver Graven af, begraves selv som den første.

Den kloge Jurist tænker således: Hvilken Løsning vilde efter omstændighederne være den fornuftigste – så finder vi nok en eller anden Paragraf at putte den ind under.

Det karakteristiske ved en god Regering er, at alle efterhånden bliver utilfredse med den.

Magtens høst er Afmagt – først de andres, så ens egen.

Det er undertiden sværere at huske at glemme end at glemme at huske.

Sandheden bliver først Sandhed efterhånden.

Hvorfor skal det altid være de ædleste og skønneste Ideer, hvis Gennemførelse ledsages af de groveste Overgreb?

Kender De ham, der taler i en Tone, som gjorde han Universet en Tjeneste ved at tage Ordet!

Jo mere idealistisk en Bevægelse er, desto større Tilslutning får den hos de fattige i Ånden.

”Fa’r! Hvad er forskellen på Ironi, Satire og Humor?” – ”Ironien siger ”I”, Satiren ”de”, Humoren ”vi”. Ironien ryster på Hovedet af, Satiren håner, Humoren føler med Menneskene.

Der er to slags idealister: de, der er parate til at ofre sig selv, og de, der er parate til at ofre alle andre.

Det er såmænd ikke så vanskeligt at forstå kommunisterne (eller Putin; citatet er skrevet i 1949). Man skal bare huske, at demokrati, valgret, flertal, selvstændighed, frihed og fred betyder nøjagtig det modsatte.

”Fa’r! Hvad er egentlig klogskab?” –

”Det er intelligensens respekt for dumhedens magt.”