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On close inspection, we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity of an absolute government.

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
Shall
Causes
Inspection
Religion
Absolutes
Fear
Absolute
Government
Prosperity
Find
Lived
Ever
Close
Long
Cause

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He [Napoleon] was as great as a man can be without morality.
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Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
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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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Life is to be entered upon with courage.
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We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
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They all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point.
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If men are to remain civilized or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.
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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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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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I see no clear reason why the doctrine of self-interest properly understood should turn men away from religious beliefs.
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When an American asks for the cooperation of his fellow citizens, it is seldom refused and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great good will.
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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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Nations are less disposed to make revolutions in proportion as personal property is augmented and distributed among them, and as the number of those possessing it is increased.
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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 man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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Men seldom take the opinion of their equal, or of a man like themselves, upon trust.
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The Americans make associations to give entertainment, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes in this manner, they found hospitals, prisons and schools.
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In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.
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The character of Anglo-American civilization . . . is the product . . . of two perfectly distinct elements that elsewhere have often made war with each other, but which, in America, they have succeeded in incorporating somehow into one another and combining marvelously. I mean to speak of the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom.
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What is understood by republican government in the United States is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself.
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