Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice.

The aphorism warns that an overgrown apparatus of coercion and adjudication can signal a society’s underlying disorder rather than its health. “Too many policemen” implies liberty is being replaced by surveillance and enforcement; “too many soldiers” suggests politics has yielded to militarization, making peace precarious; and “too many lawyers” hints that justice has become procedural, adversarial, and inaccessible, requiring constant litigation instead of shared norms. The parallel structure turns the line into a general principle: when institutions meant to protect freedom, security, and fairness become disproportionately prominent, they may indicate the erosion of the very goods they claim to safeguard.