“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.”

Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge.

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous.

The true natural check on absolute democracy is the federal system, which limits the central government by the powers reserved, and the state governments by the powers they have ceded.

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.

And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.

History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play.

But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power….

If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.

A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.

When the revolutionary theory of government began to prevail, and Church and State found that they were educating for opposite ends and in a contradictory spirit, it became necessary to remove children entirely from the influence of religion.

In England Parliament is above the law. In America the law is above Congress.

Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.

The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.

Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.

Democracy needs support and the best support for democracy comes from other democracies. Democratic nations should come together in an association designed to help each other and promote what is a universal value – democracy.

Democracy is necessary to peace and to undermining the forces of terrorism.

Democracy needs support, and the best support for democracy comes from other democracies.

Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.