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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.

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
Society
Common
United
Two
Anything
Nothing
Envy
Terror
Cutting

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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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In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
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The taste for well-being is the prominent and indelible feature of democratic times.
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Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.
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As I see it, only God can be all-powerful without danger, because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. Thus there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment (p. 290).
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What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.
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We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.
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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.
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You may be sure that if you succeed in bringing your audience into the presence of something that affects them, they will not care by what road you brought them there and they will never reproach you for having excited their emotions in spite of dramatic rules.
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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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The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
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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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But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.
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The taste which men have for liberty and that which they feel for equality are, in fact, two different things...among democratic nations they are two unequal things.
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Among these widely differing families of men, the first that attracts attention, the superior in intelligence, in power, and in enjoyment, is the white, or European, the MAN pre-eminently so called, below him appear the Negro and the Indian.
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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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In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are not disinterested, but they are gentle.
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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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The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer without complaint, and to die singing.
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