Alexis de Tocqueville

There is no country in the world where the love of property is more active and more anxious than in the United States.

The human mind is more apt to be struck by the newness of things than by their magnitude.

The principle of equality, which is the very essence of democracy, tends to make men forget their ancestors and their descendants, and to concentrate their attention on themselves.

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.

The human heart is not satisfied with the goods of this world; it constantly seeks to rise above them.

The greatest danger that threatens modern nations is the indifference of the citizens to the public good.

The Americans are a very religious people, but they are not a very superstitious people.

The truth is often unpopular, but it is never weak.

The human mind is naturally inclined to believe in the immortality of the soul.

The love of wealth is therefore the chief spring of human activity in America.

The human heart is a strange mixture of good and evil.

The Americans are a people of innovators, and they are always seeking new ways of doing things.

Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all evils, the support of all rights, the defender of all innocents. It is the natural enemy of all those who seek to govern without it.

I am not afraid that they will find bad governments, but that they will find no government at all.

The American system of government is a machine for making men free, but it is also a machine for making them equal.

Men will not be free until the last king is strangled with the guts of the last priest.

The love of equality is a passion that is both powerful and dangerous.

The great advantage of the Americans is that they have arrived at a state of democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution.

The greatest danger that threatens modern nations is the gradual enfeeblement of the military spirit.

The principle of equality has been the most powerful and the most lasting of all the principles that have influenced the destinies of men.