At the head of any new undertaking where in France you would find the government, or in England some great lord, in the United States you are sure to find an association.

Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.

Among the droves of men with political ambitions in the United States, I found very few with that virile candor, that manly independence of thought, that often distinguished Americans in earlier times and that is invariably the preeminent trait of great characters wherever it exists.

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.

A French observer is surprised to hear how often an English or an American lawyer quotes the opinions of others, and how little he alludes to his own; ... This abnegation of his own opinion, and this implicit deference to the opinion of his forefathers, which are common to the English and American lawyer, this servitude of thought which he is obliged to profess, necessarily give him more timid habits and more conservative inclinations in England and America than in France.

Religion, which never intervenes directly in the government of American society, should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions