America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. - Alexis de Tocqueville

I had rather mistrust my own capacity than God's justice.

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.

A man is born; his first years go by in obscurity amid the pleasures or hardships of childhood. He grows up; then comes the beginning of manhood; finally society's gates open to welcome him; he comes into contact with his fellows. For the first time he is scrutinized and the seeds of the vices and virtues of his maturity are thought to be observed forming in him.

This is, if I am not mistaken, a singular error.

Step back in time; look closely at the child in the very arms of his mother; see the external world reflected for the first time in the yet unclear mirror of his understanding; study the first examples which strike his eyes; listen to the first word which arouse with him the slumbering power of thought; watch the first struggles which he has to undergo; only then will you comprehend the source of the prejudices, the habits, and the passions which are to rule his life.