Alexis de Tocqueville

The charms of the equality of condition are irresistible.

If man were forced to demonstrate before he could enjoy government, he would perish before he was born.

The whole life of an American is passed in a state of restless and unsatisfied desire.

There are now two Europes, as in the Middle Ages there were two Romes.

I have never been able to regard the French Revolution as a sudden accident.

Equality is a slogan based on a false notion of arithmetic equality.

The best laws cannot make a constitution work in the absence of a people’s habits, customs, and morals.

In the midst of the greatest monarchies of Europe, I saw mighty rivers flow unconfined.

The sovereignty of the people is a fiction.

Familiarity with the vices of others does not make us virtuous.

The more I see of democracy, the more I adore aristocracy.

Nothing is so insufferable to a man as to be governed by constraint.

The habits of a virtuous people are more favorable to liberty than those of a virtuous prince.

I am far from denying that newspapers are a powerful means of diffusing knowledge.

The short memories of democratic nations make them pursue their own advantage.

In democratic countries, knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge.

The principle of equality, which makes men independent of each other, gives them a habit and a taste for following their own will.

Every new generation is a new people.

The French want equality in liberty, and if they cannot have that, they still want equality.

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.