It is dangerous, at any time, to multiply sources of weakness.

The man who prefers his country before any other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the state. They both deny that right is superior to authority.

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.

Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.

If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.

The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.