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

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

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

Men in general are neither very good nor very bad, but mediocre... Man with his vices, his weaknesses, his virtues, this confused medley of good and ill, high and low, goodness and depravity, is yet, take him all in all, the object on earth most worthy of study, of interest, of pity, of attachment and of admiration. And since we haven't got angels, we can attach ourselves to nothing greater and more worthy of our devotion than our own kind.