A Quote by Nicolas Chamfort
If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France.
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Many in Germany are saying that Macron should be helped. That's also how I see it. But Germany cannot solve France's problems. The French president and his government will have to seriously knuckle down in order to pull France out of its slump.
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.
In England, you laugh at yourselves; in France, we laugh at others.
In England you laugh at yourselves, in France we laugh at others.
We have gotten to the point where everything the government does is counterproductive; the conclusion, of course, is that the government should do nothing at all, that is, should retire quickly from the monetary and economic scene and allow freedom and free markets to work.
The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.
There is nothing wrong with describing Conservatism as protecting the Constitution, protecting all things that limit government. Government is the enemy of liberty. Government should be very restrained.
You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. ... Government contains impure ingredients - as anybody who's looked at Congress can tell you. ... government practices deceptive advertising. And the merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government of perjury, extortion, and fraud. ... in a nutshell: government should be against the law. Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.
I consider that France and the Republic were in London during the occupation and that the Vichy regime was not France.
We laugh and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment.
It is all the more necessary under a system of free government that the people should be enlightened, that they should be correctly informed, than it is under an absolute government that they should be ignorant. Under a republic the institutions of learning, while bound by the constitution and laws, are in no way subservient to the government.
The Republicans just want to bankrupt the government. They think that the government should do nothing, except maybe support the military. So terrorism is perfect for them.
The seeds of today's runaway government were planted when it was decided that government should help those who can't help themselves. From that modest, compassionate beginning to today's out-of-control mega-state, there's a straight, unbroken line. Once the door was open, once it was settled that the government should help some people at the expense of others, there was no stopping it.
In France, I'm not going to say the audience will laugh for nothing, but you could compare the response I get to the response Louis CK or Chris Rock would get if they go up in a club in Denver tonight.
A poet or a comedian can say what's on the mind of people. They should be funny. They should make you laugh. It may be so truthful that it hurts, but it makes you laugh.
I'm opposed to wearing headscarves in public places. That's not France. There's something I just don't understand: the people who come to France, why would they want to change France, to live in France the same way they lived back home?
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