The happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend on piety, religion, and morality.

Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.

A government by the passions of the multitude, or, no less correctly, according to the vices, and ambitions of their leaders is a democracy.

I consider biennial elections as a security that the sober, second thought of the people shall be law.

A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; a republic is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet are always in the water.

Liberty is not to be enjoyed, indeed it cannot exist, without the habits of just subordination; it consists, not so much in removing all restraint from the orderly, as in imposing it on the violent.

The people as a body cannot deliberate. Nevertheless, they will feel an irresistible impulse to act, and their resolutions will be dictated to them by their demagogues... and the violent men, who are the most forward to gratify those passions, will be their favorites. What is called the government of the people is in fact too often the arbitrary power of such men. Here, then, we have the faithful portrait of democracy.