On close inspection, we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity of an absolute government.

As I see it, only God can be all-powerful without danger, because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. Thus there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment (p. 290).

Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind in America... In the United States... Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it.

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.

The taste for well-being is the prominent and indelible feature of democratic times.

The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal, but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness.

Socialism is a new form of slavery.