“In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.”

Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.

The more government takes the place of associations, the more will individuals lose the idea of forming associations and need the government to come to their help. That is a vicious circle of cause and effect.

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.

However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.

I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.

A man’s admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.

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

As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?

Any measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class.

As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.

Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.

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 most perilous moment for a bad government is when it seeks to mend its ways. Only consummate statecraft can enable a king to save his throne when, after a long spell of oppression, he sets out to improve the lot of his subjects.

As for me, I am deeply a democrat; this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can’t have it both ways. Socialism is a new form of slavery.

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.

I want friends, not admirers. People who respect me for my character and my deeds, not my flattering smile.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

Whoever neglects old friends for the sake of new, lose both.

We ride together. We die together.

If I want to go to a party with a few male friends, it doesn’t mean I’m gay.

Friendship with oneself is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

Never contract friendship with a man that is not better than thyself.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence.