It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my part, I should be inclined to think free… - Alexis de Tocqueville

Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions: they want to be led, and they wish to remain free. As they cannot destroy either the one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large who hold the end of his chain.

We are sleeping on a volcano... A wind of revolution blows, the storm is on the horizon.

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