Laws are like sausages. You sleep far better the less you know about how they are made.
Otto Von BismarckRead
When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the gap between approval and action, suggesting that verbal support often lacks follow-through in reality.
Otto Von Bismarck's quote critiques the tendency of individuals to express agreement or support for an idea in theory, while their actual commitment to implementing it remains nonexistent. This reflects a common human behavior where people may voice their approval without any intent to take action, exposing a disconnect between words and deeds.
Themes
ApprovalActionIntentionWordsDeeds
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about political promises that are often unfulfilled.
More from Otto Von Bismarck
All quotes βPreventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.
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.
Otto Von BismarckRead
Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable β the art of the next best
Otto Von BismarckRead
It is the destiny of the weak to be devoured by the strong.
Otto Von BismarckRead
A generation that has taken a beating is always followed by a generation that deals one.
Otto Von BismarckRead
Similar quotes
...religion is a tool to bind people together, to strengthen their unity, but like every tool, it can be mismanaged, even used in opposition to the way it should.
Deepak ChopraRead
To think that before the hills were formed, or the channels of the sea were scooped out, God loved me; that from everlasting to everlasting His mercy is upon His people. Is not that a consolation?
Charles SpurgeonRead
The world is full of judgment-days, and into every assembly that a man enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged and stamped.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.
Thomas JeffersonRead
By mere burial man arrives not at bliss; and in the future life, throughout its whole infinite range, they will seek for happiness as vainly as they sought it here, who seek it in aught else than that which so closely surrounds them here - the Infinite
Johann Gottlieb FichteRead
When I am angry, I pray God to swing our globe into the fiery sun and prevent the sorrows of the not-yet-born: but when I am content, I want to lie forever in the shade, till I become a shade myself.
T. E. LawrenceRead