It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquility of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life.

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.

The position of the Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.

Men seldom take the opinion of their equal, or of a man like themselves, upon trust.

I see no clear reason why the doctrine of self-interest properly understood should turn men away from religious beliefs.