Alexis de Tocqueville

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

I know of no country in which, on the whole, less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion are to be found than in America.

Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the supporter of just rights, the defender of the oppressed, and the founder of order.

The most dangerous moment for a bad government is generally when it starts to reform itself.

America is a land of wonders, in which everything is great.

An aristocracy cannot be created, but it can be destroyed.

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.

I am not afraid of the common people, but of the common people's common sense.

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

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

The love of wealth is therefore to be traced, as a principal ingredient, in the democratic character.

It is difficult to imagine how men who have entirely renounced the habit of managing their own affairs could be successful in governing those of others.

The first thing that strikes a traveler in the United States is the innumerable multitude of those who seek to emerge from their original condition.

In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.

When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.

The Americans have a democratic constitution, but they have not had a democratic revolution.

The principle of equality has been gaining ground in Europe for centuries, and it is still gaining ground.

I confess that in America I saw more than America; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or to hope from its progress.

The people reign in the American political world as the Deity does in the universe.

The safeguard of morality is religion, and the safeguard of religion is the state.