A long war almost always places nations in this sad alternative: that their defeat delivers them to destruction and their triumph to despotism.

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.

I do not find fault with equality for drawing men into the pursuit of forbidden pleasures, but for absorbing them entirely in the search for the pleasures that are permitted.

What is understood by republican government in the United States is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself.

Nations are less disposed to make revolutions in proportion as personal property is augmented and distributed among them, and as the number of those possessing it is increased.

I see no clear reason why the doctrine of self-interest properly understood should turn men away from religious beliefs.

America is great because she is good.