One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government...is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

I have always noticed in politics how often men are ruined by having too good a memory.

Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort. Do not talk to him about the interests and rights of the human race; that little private business of his for the moment absorbs all his thoughts, and he hopes that public disturbances can be put off to some other time.

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

But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.

The French constitute the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation in Europe and the best qualified in turn to become an object of admiration, hatred, pity or terror but never indifference.