The old apothegm reiterated by those who reject stricter gun-control laws takes on a different resonance if it’s paraphrased this way: “Guns don’t kill children — children kill children.” (Author not given, “The Death of Innocence?” Newsweek, 04/3/2000, p. 18.)
“To live outside the law, you must be honest.” [Hunter] Thompson, like a lot of people in the sixties and seventies, interpreted Dylan’s famous apothegm to mean that in order to be honest you must live outside the law. (Louis Menand, “Believer,” The New Yorker 2/27/2005).
This word can also be a synonym for adage, aphorism or maxim.
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