Government can't do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.
I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.
I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.
I will not cede more power to the state. I will not willingly cede more power to anyone.... I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit.
Ideas have to go into exchange to become or remain operative; and the medium of such exchange is the printed word.
Intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great.
The Gulag Archipelago told us everything we needed to know about the pathology of Soviet communism. We were missing only the galvanizing summation; and we got it from President Reagan....
The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.
Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.
