Evils which are patiently endured when they seem inevitable become intolerable once the idea of escape from them is suggested. - Alexis de Tocqueville

The French are … the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation of Europe, and the one that is surest to inspire admiration, hatred, terror, or pity, but never indifference.

men who so uneasily tolerate superiors patiently suffer a master, and show themselves proud and servile at the same time.

From this foul drain the greatest stream of human industry flows out to fertilize the whole world. From this filthy sewer gold flows. Here humanity attains its most complete development and its most brutish, here civilization works its miracles and civilized man is turned almost into a savage.