Ask not what the government can do for you. Ask why it doesn't.

Ask not what the government can do for you. Ask why it doesn't.

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens - and then everybody disagrees.

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens - and then everybody disagrees.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our read more

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

Governments exist to protect the rights of minorities. The loved and the rich need no protection: they have many friends read more

Governments exist to protect the rights of minorities. The loved and the rich need no protection: they have many friends and few enemies.

A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason no regime has read more

A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule to never criticize or attack the government of my own read more

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule to never criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

Despotism tempered by assassination, that is our Magna Carta.
[Fr., Le despotisme tempere par l'assassinat, c'est notre magna
read more

Despotism tempered by assassination, that is our Magna Carta.
[Fr., Le despotisme tempere par l'assassinat, c'est notre magna
charta.]

A government of laws, and not of men.

A government of laws, and not of men.