~ Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes ~

[MysteRy]

Americans are so enamored of equality they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

[MysteRy]

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.

[MysteRy]

I should have loved freedom I believe at all times but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.

[MysteRy]

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

[MysteRy]

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.

[MysteRy]

There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

[MysteRy]

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

[MysteRy]

The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.

[MysteRy]

Consider any individual at any period of his life and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.

[MysteRy]

We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.

[MysteRy]

The main business of religions is to purify control and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.

[MysteRy]

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.

[MysteRy]

When American(s) ask for the cooperation of (their) fellow citizens it is seldom refused; and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great good will.

[MysteRy]

The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.

[MysteRy]

It is the dissimilarities and inequalities among men which give rise to the notion of honor; as such differences become less it grows feeble; and when they disappear it will vanish too.