I am unaware of his plans but I shall never stop believing in them because I cannot fathom them and I prefer to mistrust my own intellectual capacities than his justice.
On close inspection, we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity of an absolute government.
Nations, as well as men, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years.
everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure
I passionately love liberty, legality, respect for rights, but not democracy. That is what I find in the depth of my soul.
When justice is more certain and more mild, is at the same time more efficacious.
The only nations which deny the utility of provincial liberties are those which have fewest of them; in other words, those who are unacquainted with the institution are the only persons who passed censure upon it.
The whole people contracts the habits and tastes of the magistrate.
All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.
Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power, or debased by the habit of obedience; but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegitimate, and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.
The passion for war is so intense that there is no undertaking so mad, or so injurious to the welfare of the State, that a man does not consider himself honored in defending it, at the risk of his life.
Sixty years is too brief a compass for man’s imagination. The incomplete joys of this world can never satisfy his heart.
Nothing is more necessary to the culture of the higher sciences, or of the more elevated departments of science, than meditation; and nothing is less suited to meditation than the structure of democratic society.
For benefits by their very greatness spotlight the difference in conditions and arouse a secret annoyance in those who profit from them. But the charm of simple good manners is almost irresistible.
In America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom.
There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.
Nations as well as men require time to learn, whatever may be their intelligence or zeal.
There is a natural prejudice which prompts men to despise whomsoever has been their inferior long after he has become their equal.
The greatest difficulty in antiquity with that of altering the law; among the moderns, it is that of altering the manners.
The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democracy, from beneath which the old aristocratic colors sometimes peep.
Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them by their friends
What is called family pride is often founded on the illusion of self-love. A man wishes to perpetuate and immortalize himself.
In such an admirable position of the New World, man has no other enemy than himself.
Durability is one of the chief elements of strength. Nothing is either loved or feared but that which is likely to endure.
Slavery received, but the prejudice to which it has given birth remains stationary.
He who in given cases consents to obey his fellows with servility, and who submits his will, and even his thoughts, to their control, how can he pretend that he wishes to be free?
Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot.
America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
The happy and powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune.
America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement.
Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry interests, in one word, so anti-poetic, as the life of a man in the United States.
nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon precedents.
I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.
I had rather mistrust my own capacity than God’s justice.
In the midst of the apparent diversity of human affairs, a certain number of primary facts may be discovered, from which all others are derived.
The free worker receives a wage; the slave an education, food, care, clothing; the money that the master spends to keep the slave is drained little by little and in detail; one hardly perceives it.1
The only way to neutralize the effect of public journals is to multiply them indefinitely.
[Patriotism] is in itself a kind of religion: it does not reason, but it acts from the impulse of faith and sentiment.
History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
Human understanding more easily invents new things than new words.
Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.
In politics a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
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.
There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult – to begin a war and to end it.
Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.
The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.
The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.
Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.
As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?
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.
Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.