The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.

Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years.

The Americans make associations to give entertainment, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner, they found hospitals, prisons and schools.

It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life.

The taste which men have for liberty and that which they feel for equality are, in fact, two different things...among democratic nations they are two unequal things.

The only authors whom I acknowledge as American are the journalists. They, indeed, are not great writers, but they speak the language of their countrymen, and make themselves heard by them.

Life is to be entered upon with courage.