Laws are like sausages. You sleep far better the less you know about how they are made.
Otto Von BismarckRead
With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half.
Interpretation
Bismarck suggests that our behavior often reflects the nature of those around us.
This quote reflects the idea that we adapt our demeanor based on the characters of the people we interact with. Bismarck highlights the duality in human relationships, suggesting that with honorable individuals, we elevate our own honor, while with deceitful people, we may mirror their shortcomings to some extent. It emphasizes the complexities of social interaction and the inherent influence that others have on our behavior.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the impact of peer pressure on personal ethics.
Laws are like sausages. You sleep far better the less you know about how they are made.
Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.
Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable β the art of the next best
It is the destiny of the weak to be devoured by the strong.
A generation that has taken a beating is always followed by a generation that deals one.
The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night
Who can tell truth from falsehood any more? I say it, and you feel it in your hearts: no man or woman on this big small earth. How should our sages miss the mark of life, and our most skillful players lose the game? your hearts will tell you, as my heart has told me: because all know, and no one understands.
In this constant battle which we call living, we try to set a code of conduct according to the society in which we are brought up, whether it be a Communist society or a so-called free society; we accept a standard of behaviour as part of our tradition as Hindus or Muslims or Christians or whatever we happen to be.
Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?
These small things - nutrition, place, climate, recreation, the whole casuistry of selfishness - are inconceivably more important than everything one has taken to be important so far.
When you look at the stars and the galaxy, you feel that you are not just from any particular piece of land, but from the solar system.
The body is an instrument which only gives off music when it is used as a body. Always an orchestra, and just as music traverses walls, so sensuality traverses the body and reaches up to ecstasy.
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