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

Alexis de Tocqueville

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Alexis de Tocqueville
Age: 53 †
Born: 1805
Born: July 29
Died: 1859
Died: April 16
Historian
Jurist
Philosopher
Politician
Sociologist
Writer
Paris
France
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clerel de Tocqueville
War
Difficult
Two
Ends
Find
Always
Things
Democratic
People
Begin

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The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
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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?
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In democratic countries as well as elsewhere most of the branches of productive industry are carried on at a small cost by men little removed by their wealth or education above the level of those whom they employ.
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A newspaper is an adviser who does not require to be sought, but who comes of his own accord, and talks to you briefly every day of the common wealth, without distracting you from your private affairs.
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History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery containing a host of copies and very few originals.
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At the head of any new undertaking where in France you would find the government, or in England some great lord, in the United States you are sure to find an association.
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If I were asked ... to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
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The most perilous moment for a bad government is when it seeks to mend its ways. Only consummate statecraft can enable a king to save his throne when, after a long spell of oppression, he sets out to improve the lot of his subjects.
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Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
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Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and themselves.
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A man who raises himself by degrees to wealth and power, contracts, in the course of this protracted labor, habits of prudence and restraint which he cannot afterwards shake off. A man cannot gradually enlarge his mind as he does his house.
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To commit violent and unjust acts, it is not enough for a government to have the will or even the power the habits, ideas and passions of the time must lend themselves to their committal.
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What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class.
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Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.
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Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
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You need not value it yourself if you do not wish to but you ought to allow it to us who do value it.
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The aspect of American society is animated, because men and things are always changing but it is monotonous, because all the changes are alike.
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Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
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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.
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