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 great men; that they would set less value on the work and more upon the workman; that they would never forget that a nation cannot long remain strong when every man belonging to it is individually weak; and that no form or combination of social polity has yet been devised to make an energetic people out of a community of pusillanimous and enfeebled citizens.

One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government...is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.

A long war almost always places nations in this sad alternative: that their defeat delivers them to destruction and their triumph to despotism.

The character of Anglo-American civilization . . . is the product . . . of two perfectly distinct elements that elsewhere have often made war with each other, but which, in America, they have succeeded in incorporating somehow into one another and combining marvelously. I mean to speak of the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom.

Can it be believed that the democracy, which has overthrown the feudal system and vanquished kings, will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists?