We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.

• 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.
• The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
• The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.
• 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.
• 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.
• No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.
• There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.
• Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
• We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
• 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.