
„Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. “
— John F. Kennedy 35th president of the United States of America 1917 - 1963
— John F. Kennedy 35th president of the United States of America 1917 - 1963
— John F. Kennedy 35th president of the United States of America 1917 - 1963
"In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it." is one of seven quotes inscribed on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery.
"The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world." is one of seven quotes inscribed on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery.
"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." is one of seven quotes inscribed on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery.
It has been reported at various places on the internet that in JFK's Inaugural address, the famous line "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", was inspired by, or even a direct quotation of the famous and much esteemed writer and poet Khalil Gibran. Gibran in 1925 wrote in Arabic a line that has been translated as:
::Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country?
::If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert.
However, this translation of Gibran is one that occurred over a decade after Kennedy's 1961 speech, appearing in A Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran (1975) edited by Andrew Dib Sherfan, and the translator most likely drew upon Kennedy's famous words in expressing Gibran's prior ideas. For a further discussion regarding the quote see here.
1961, Inaugural Address
Kontekst: In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
— Milton Friedman, książka Capitalism and Freedom
Introduction
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
Kontekst: The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country. He will ask rather "What can I and my compatriots do through government" to help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will both attract and form men of a different stamp.
— George W. Bush 43rd President of the United States 1946
Remarks by the President at Missouri Victory 2006 Rally http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061103-1.html (November 3, 2006)
2000s, 2006
— Margaret Thatcher British stateswoman and politician 1925 - 2013
Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1984) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105763
Second term as Prime Minister
Kontekst: In the Conservative Party, we have no truck with outmoded Marxist doctrine about class warfare. For us, it is not who you are, who your family is or where you come from that matters. It is what you are and what you can do for our country that counts. That is our vision.
— José Rizal, książka Noli Me Tángere
Źródło: Noli Me Tángere
— Frederick Douglass American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman 1818 - 1895
1860s, What the Black Man Wants (1865)
— Mitt Romney American businessman and politician 1947
West Chester, Ohio campaign event,
Referring to Obama on telling a Springfield, Ohio audience booing at his mention of Romney's name, "No, no, no — don't boo, vote. Vote! Voting's the best revenge."
2012
— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. United States Supreme Court justice 1841 - 1935
1880s, In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire (1884)
— George Washington first President of the United States 1732 - 1799
Encouraging his men to re-enlist in the army (31 December 1776)
1770s
— Seneca the Younger, książka Epistulae morales ad Lucilium
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXVII: On Taking One’s Own Life
— Diogenes Laërtius biographer of ancient Greek philosophers 180 - 240
Diogenes, 6.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 6: The Cynics
— Edward Everett Hale American author and Unitarian clergyman 1822 - 1909
Reported in Van Wyck Brooks, New England: Indian Summer, 1865–1915 (1940), p. 418, footnote. Another source states: "The celebrated anecdote... is not so unambiguous as it appears... There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of Hale's reply, but it should be understood within a framework of respect for the senators as well as concern for the country. He knew every one of them personally and regarded them, as he said in his preface to Prayers in The Senate (1904), as 'intelligent men, in very close daily intimacy with each other, in the discharge of a common duty of the greatest importance.'" John R. Adams, Edward Everett Hale (1977), pp. 100–101.
Disputed
— Clement Attlee Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1883 - 1967
Broadcast (30 July 1950), quoted in The Times (31 July 1950), p. 4.
1950s
— A. P. J. Abdul Kalam 11th President of India, scientist and science administrator 1931 - 2015
Źródło: Rediff.com News, June 13, 2002 ([http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/jun/13prez2.htm online): Kalam responding to the announcement of his candidature by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
— Christopher Hitchens British American author and journalist 1949 - 2011
1990s
— Giacomo Casanova Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice 1725 - 1798
History of My Life (trans. Trask 1967), 1997 reprint, v. 8, chapter 9, p. 243
Referenced
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Russian writer 1918 - 2008
Źródło: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
— Fritz Sauckel German general 1894 - 1946
To Leon Goldensohn, February 9, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004 - Page 209.