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The most durable monument of human labor is that which recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.

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
Men
Durable
Wretchedness
Monument
Recalls
Nothingness
Labor
Human
Humans

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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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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
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I am far from denying that newspapers in democratic countries lead citizens to do very ill-considered things in common but without newspapers there would be hardly any common action at all. So they mend many more ills than they cause.
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Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.
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Men living in democratic times have many passions, but most of their passions either end in the love of riches, or proceed from it.
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In the United States, except for slaves, servants and the destitute fed by townships, everyone has the vote and this is an indirect contributor to law-making. Anyone wishing to attack the law is thus reduced to adopting one of two obvious courses: they must either change the nation's opinion or trample its wishes under foot.
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The will of the nation is one of those phrases most widely abused by schemers and tyrants of all ages.
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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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Remember that life is neither pain nor pleasure it is serious business, to be entered upon with courage and in a spirit of self-sacrifice.
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Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy those who had anything united in common terror.
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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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One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government...is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.
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Slavery...dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.
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When the people rule, they must be rendered happy, or they will overturn the state.
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The foremost or indeed sole condition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality or to get men to believe you love it. Thus, the science of despotism, which was once so complex, has been simplified and reduced, as it were, to a single principle.
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He who seeks freedom for anything but freedom's self is made to be a slave.
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The civil jury is the most effective form of sovereignty of the people. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During the reigns of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and Elizabeth I (1158-1603), the civil jury did in reality save the liberties of England.
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Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
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The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer without complaint, and to die singing.
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