In Europe we have cities wealthier and more populous than yours and we are not happy. You dream of your posterity; but your posterity will look back to yours as the golden age, and envy those who first burst into this silent, splendid Nature.

No government demands so much from the citizens as democracy and none gives back so much.

Perhaps the most typically American place in America.

The tendency everywhere in America to concentrate power and responsibility in one man is unmistakable.

Life is too short to read inferior books.

Of all the differences between the Old World and the New, this is perhaps the most salient. Half the wars of Europe, half the internal troubles that have vexed European States... have arisen from theological differences or from the rival claims of Church and State. This whole vast chapter of debate and strife has remained virtually unopened in the United States. There is no Established Church. All religious bodies are equal before the law, and unrecognized by the law, except as voluntary associations of private citizens.

When you find that a book is poor ... waste no more time upon it.