The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?

Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy; those who had anything united in common terror.

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish 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.

The more government takes the place of associations, the more will individuals lose the idea of forming associations and need the government to come to their help. That is a vicious circle of cause and effect.

Of all the countries of the world America is the one where the movement of thought and human industry is the most continuous and swift.