Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.

As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.

To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.

General ideas are no proof of the strength, but rather of the insufficiency of the human intellect.

The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.

Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.

Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.

Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.

It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life.

Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.

You need not value it yourself if you do not wish to; but you ought to allow it to us who do value it.

The will of the nation is one of those phrases most widely abused by schemers and tyrants of all ages.

The most durable monument of human labor is that which recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.

Of all nations, those submit to civilization with the most difficulty which habitually live by the chase.

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

A man's admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.

History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery containing a host of copies and very few originals.

Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach.

The principle of equality does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth.

Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.

Physical strength therefore is one of the first conditions of happiness and even of the existence of nations.

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.

America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement.

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.

The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.

If there ever are great revolutions there, they will be caused by the presence of the blacks upon American soil.

I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.

Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.

There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.

Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy; those who had anything united in common terror.

What is understood by republican government in the United States is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself.

I see no clear reason why the doctrine of self-interest properly understood should turn men away from religious beliefs.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just; and its justice constitutes its greatness and beauty.

If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.

Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years.

In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.

The evil which one suffers patiently as inevitable seems insupportable as soon as he conceives the idea of escaping from it.

I know without needing to hear the voice of the Creator that the stars trace out in space the orbits which His hand has drawn.

Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.

In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.

The happy and powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune.

To get the inestimable good that freedom of the press assures one must know how to submit to the inevitable evil it gives rise to.

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.

[R]eligion cannot share the material strength of the rulers without being burdened with some of the animosity roused against them.

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