As I see it, only God can be all-powerful without danger, because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. Thus there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment (p. 290).

In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.

The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.

As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.

Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind in America... In the United States... Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it.

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

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.