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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

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
American
Religion
Political
Intervenes
Government
Directly
Firsts
Considered
First
Institutions
Never
Therefore

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Among the droves of men with political ambitions in the United States, I found very few with that virile candor, that manly independence of thought, that often distinguished Americans in earlier times and that is invariably the preeminent trait of great characters wherever it exists.
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When the people rule, they must be rendered happy, or they will overturn the state.
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A great democratic revolution is taking place in our midst.
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Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science they bring it within the people's reach.
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But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.
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Despotism may be able to do without religion, but democracy cannot.
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The most durable monument of human labor is that which recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.
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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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Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.
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It is an axiom of political science in the United States that the sole means of neutralizing the effects of newspapers is to multiply their number.
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The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet.
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Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.... The subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance.
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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 towns it is impossible to prevent men from assembling, getting excited together and forming sudden passionate resolves. Towns are like great meeting houses with all the inhabitants as members. In them the people wield immense influence over their magistrates and often carry their desires into execution without intermediaries.
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Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.
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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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No stigma attaches to the love of money in America, and provided it does not exceed the bounds imposed by public order, it is held in honor. The American will describe as noble and estimable ambition that our medieval ancestors would have called base cupidity.
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The man who submits to violence is debased by his compliance but when he submits to that right of authority which he acknowledges in a fellow creature, he rises in some measure above the person who give the command.
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A long war almost always places nations in this sad alternative: that their defeat delivers them to destruction and their triumph to despotism.
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