"When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters."
— Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America, Volume 2 (Vintage Classics))

"America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."
— Alexis de Tocqueville

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
— Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America)