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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.

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
Humans
Living
Actions
Nothing
Action
Sight
Form
Except
First
Seems
Grow
Important
Used
Grows
Outward
Men
Firsts
Society
Store
Human
Upon
Manners
Everything
Less
Stores

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Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.
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In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.
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Men seldom take the opinion of their equal, or of a man like themselves, upon trust.
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I avow that I do not hold that complete and instantaneous love for the freedom of the press that one accords to things whose nature is unqualifiedly good. I love it out of consideration for the evils it prevents much more than for the good it does.
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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.
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I see no clear reason why the doctrine of self-interest properly understood should turn men away from religious beliefs.
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The principle of equality does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth.
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I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
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So many of my thoughts and feelings are shared by the English that England has turned into a second native land of the mind for me.
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By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.
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We need a new political science for a new world.
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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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Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
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The taste for well-being is the prominent and indelible feature of democratic times.
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In America one of the first things done in a new State is to make the post go there in the forests of Michigan there is no cabin so isolated, no valley so wild, but that letters and newspapers arrive at least once a week.
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[Liberty] considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.
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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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The more government takes the place of associations, the more will individuals lose the idea of forming associations and need the government to come to their help. That is a vicious circle of cause and effect.
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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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The French constitute the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation in Europe and the best qualified in turn to become an object of admiration, hatred, pity or terror but never indifference.
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