Every Class Is Unfit To Govern.

Absolute Power Demoralizes.

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 History Of Institutions Is Often A History Of Deception And Illusions; For Their Virtue Depends On The Ideas That Produce And On The Spirit That Preserves Them, And The Form May Remain Unaltered When The Substance Has Passed Away.

Liberty Is Not A Means To A Higher Political End. It Is Itself The Highest Political End.

Neither An Enlightened Philosophy, Nor All The Political Wisdom Of Rome, Nor Even The Faith And Virtue Of The Christians Availed Against The Incorrigible Tradition Of Antiquity. Something Was Wanted, Beyond All The Gifts Of Reflection And Experience - A Faculty Of Self Government And Self Control, Developed Like Its Language In The Fibre Of A Nation, And Growing With Its Growth.