I have always thought it rather interesting to follow the involuntary movements of fear in clever people. Fools coarsely display their cowardice in all its nakedness, but the others are able to cover it with a veil so delicate, so daintily woven with small plausible lies, that there is some pleasure to be found in contemplating this ingenious work of the human intelligence.

Better use has been made of association and this powerful instrument of action has been applied for more varied aims in America than anywhere else in the world.

Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.

There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

Amongst democratic nations, each new generation is a new people.

Local assemblies of the people constitute the strength of free nations. Municipal institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science: they bring it within the people's reach, and teach them how to use and enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.

When the people rule, they must be rendered happy, or they will overturn the state.