I culled these from a section linked below - all fascinating, considering their origin from a non-American who took a tour to understand the USA in 1835 or so. Many of these observations are as cogent today. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.
* The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
* It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights- the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery- hay and a barn for human cattle.
* Life is to entered upon with courage.
* The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.
* Variant: The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
* "The will of the nation" is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age.
* There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
* There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult- to begin a war and to end it.
* Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity. Trade makes men independent of one another and gives them a high idea of their personal importance: it leads them to want to manage their own affairs and teaches them to succeed therein. Hence it makes them inclined to liberty but disinclined to revolution.
* What is the most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class.
* A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
* Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. *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.
* I have come across men of letters who have written history without taking part in public affairs, and politicians who have concerned themselves with producing events without thinking about them. I have observed that the first are always inclined to find general causes whereas the second, living in the midst of disconnected daily facts, are prone to imagine that everything is attributable to particular incidents, and that the wires they pull are the same as those that move the world. It is to be presumed that both are equally deceived.
* I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.
* And if anyone asks me what I think the chief cause of the extraordinary prosperity and growing power of this nation (the USA), I should answer that it is due to the superiority of their women.
* In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.
* In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.
* In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates.
* No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.
* http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville
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