When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.

When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.

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.

In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.

No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

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

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.

He was as great as a man can be without morality.

No state of society or laws can render men so much alike but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose some differences between them; and though different men may sometimes find it their interest to combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their pleasure.

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.

An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say 'Gentlemen' to the person with whom he is conversing.

Life is to be entered upon with courage.

Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.