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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
Things
Democratic
People
Begin
War
Difficult
Two
Ends
Find
Always

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I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.
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The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
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The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.
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Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and themselves.
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The public, therefore, among a democratic people, has a singular power, which aristocratic nations cannot conceive for it does not persuade others to its beliefs, but it imposes them and makes them permeate the thinking of everyone by a sort of enormous pressure of the mind of all upon the individual intelligence.
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How could a society escape destruction if, when political ties are relaxed, moral ties are not tightened, and what can be done with a people master of itself if it not subject to God?
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[R]eligion cannot share the material strength of the rulers without being burdened with some of the animosity roused against them.
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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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We need a new political science for a new world.
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America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man and in his eyes what is not yet done is only what he has not attempted to do. - from Democracy in America
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Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
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Generally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex.
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Useful undertakings which require sustained attention and vigorous precision in order to succeed often end up by being abandoned, for, in America, as elsewhere, the people move forward by sudden impulses and short-lived efforts.
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The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
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In the United States, associations are established to promote the public safety, commerce, industry, morality, and religion. There is no end which the human will despairs of attaining through the combined power of individuals united into a society.
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Religion, which never intervenes directly in the government of American society, should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions
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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
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The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.
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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.
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