Towns were the nursery of freedom.

A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.

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

Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.

There are many things the government cant do, many good purposes it must renounce. It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people. It cannot convert the people.

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.

The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.