Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.

No stigma attaches to the love of money in America, and provided it does not exceed the bounds imposed by public order, it is held in honor. The American will describe as noble and estimable ambition that our medieval ancestors would have called base cupidity.

Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.

A man who raises himself by degrees to wealth and power, contracts, in the course of this protracted labor, habits of prudence and restraint which he cannot afterwards shake off. A man cannot gradually enlarge his mind as he does his house.

I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.

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