It would seem as if the rulers of our time sought only to use men in order to make things great; I wish that they would try a little more to make gre… - Alexis de Tocqueville

A nation cannot long remain strong when every man belonging to it is individually weak

The short space of threescore years can never content the imagination of man; nor can the imperfect joys of this world satisfy his heart. Man alone, of all created beings, displays a natural contempt of existence, and yet a boundless desire to exist; he scorns life, but he dreads annihilation. These different feelings incessantly urged his soul to the contemplation of a future state, and religion directs his musings thither. Religion, then, is simply another form of hope; and it is no less natural to the human heart than hope itself.

The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is almost always an improvement on its immediate predecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform.

America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement.