The happy and powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune.

Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and themselves.

No state of society or laws can render men so much alike but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose some differences between them; and though different men may sometimes find it their interest to combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their pleasure.

Because Roman civilization perished through barbarian invasions, we are perhaps too much inclined to think that that is the only way a civilization can die. If the lights that guide us ever go out, they will fade little by little, as if of their own accord.... We therefore should not console ourselves by thinking that the barbarians are still a long way off. Some peoples may let the torch be snatched from their hands, but others stamp it out themselves.

Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.

I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.

He [Napoleon] was as great as a man can be without morality.