Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy; those who had anything united in common terror.

Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.

To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.

We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.

You may be sure that if you succeed in bringing your audience into the presence of something that affects them, they will not care by what road you brought them there; and they will never reproach you for having excited their emotions in spite of dramatic rules.

But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.

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