Even despots accept the excellence of liberty. The simple truth is that they wish to keep it for themselves and promote the idea that no one else is … - Alexis de Tocqueville

We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.

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

Commerce is naturally adverse to all the violent passions; it loves to temporize, takes delight in compromise, and studiously avoids irritation. It is patient, insinuating, flexible, and never has recourse to extreme measures until obliged by the most absolute necessity. Commerce renders men independent of each other, gives them a lofty notion of their personal importance, leads them to seek to conduct their own affairs, and teaches how to conduct them well; it therefore prepares men for freedom, but preserves them from revolutions.

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

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.