Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
There is in fact a manly and legitimate passion for equality that spurs all men to wish to be strong and esteemed. This passion tends to elevate the lesser to the rank of the greater. But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.
Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
America is great because she is good.
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
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.
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.
Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.
The idea of an election is much more interesting to me than the election itself...The act of voting is in itself the defining moment.
Without Virtue there can be no liberty
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal, hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
or simply:
