Under the absolute sway of an individual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose superior to the attempt; but such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved.

In America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom.

There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democracy, from beneath which the old aristocratic colors sometimes peep.

The whole people contracts the habits and tastes of the magistrate.

Laws are always unstable unless they are founded upon the manners of the nation; manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.

Nations as well as men require time to learn, whatever may be their intelligence or zeal.

There is a natural prejudice which prompts men to despise whomsoever has been their inferior long after he has become their equal.

The greatest difficulty in antiquity with that of altering the law; among the moderns, it is that of altering the manners.