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

Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach.

The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal, but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness.

The Americans, on the contrary, are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of interest rightly understood; they show with complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist each other, and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state.

When the people rule, they must be rendered happy, or they will overturn the state.

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

Amongst democratic nations, each new generation is a new people.