“No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country … it must invariably and immeasurably increase the powers of the civil government; it must almost compulsorily concentrate the direction of all men and the management of all things in the hands of the administration. … All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and the shortest means to accomplish it.”
"It is extremely difficult in democratic times to draw nations into hostilities; but … it is almost impossible that any two of them should go to war without embroiling the rest. The interests of all are so interlaced, their opinions and their wants so much alike, that none can remain quiet when the others stir. Wars therefore become more rare, but when they break out, they spread over a larger field."
- Alexis de Tocqueville
Awareness
"Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart."
- Alexis de Tocqueville
Awareness
"If, in short, you are of the opinion that the principal object of government is not to confer the greatest possible glory upon the body of the nation, but to ensure the greatest enjoyment and to avoid the most misery to each of the individuals who compose it—if such be your desire, then equalize the conditions of men and establish democratic institutions."
- Alexis de Tocqueville
Balance
"I think it may be admitted as a general and constant rule that among civilized nations the warlike passions will become more rare and less intense in proportion as social conditions are more equal."
- Alexis de Tocqueville
Hope
"A French observer is surprised to hear how often an English or an American lawyer quotes the opinions of others, and how little he alludes to his own; … This abnegation of his own opinion, and this implicit deference to the opinion of his forefathers, which are common to the English and American lawyer, this servitude of thought which he is obliged to profess, necessarily give him more timid habits and more conservative inclinations in England and America than in France."
- Alexis de Tocqueville
Self-awareness
"Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful."
- Joshua J. Marine
Adversity
"The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it."
- Epicurus
Adversity
"It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness."
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Adversity
"The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself—the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us—that’s where it’s at."
- Jesse Owens
Adversity
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."
- Frederick Douglass
Adversity