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.
History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
Learn as much by writing as by reading.
There should be a law to the People besides its own will.
The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
Progress, the religion of those who have none.
Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power – power sufficient to interfere with property.
Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.
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.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime...
Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.
A generous spirit prefers that his country should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, and enslaved.
A government does not desire its powers to be strictly defined, but the subjects require the line to be drawn with increasing precision.
A history that should pursue all the subtle threads from end to end might be eminently valuable, but not as a tribute to peace and conciliation.
The passion for power over others can never cease to threaten mankind, and is always sure of finding new and unforseen allies in continuing its martyrology.
The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition.
A man can be trusted only up to low-water mark.