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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.

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
Art
Increased
Become
Civilized
Improve
Together
Equality
Must
Remain
Men
Conditions
Associating
Grow
Ratio
Grows
Ratios

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The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.
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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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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 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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In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect, this may not prevent even the partisans of that very sect, from supporting him but if he attacks all the sects together, every one abandons him and he remains alone.
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The last thing abandoned by a party is its phraseology.
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To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
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It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life.
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In democracies, nothing is more great or more brilliant than commerce: it attracts the attention of the public, and fills the imagination of the multitude all energetic passions are directed towards it.
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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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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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He who seeks freedom for anything but freedom's self is made to be a slave.
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The more I view the independence of the press in its principal effects, the more I convince myself that among the moderns the independence of the press is the capital and so to speak the constitutive element of freedom.
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There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
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The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.
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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details, which must be attended to if rules have to be adapted to different men, instead of indiscriminately subjecting all men to the same rule.
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All revolutions more or less threaten the tenure of property: but most of those who live in democratic countries are possessed of property - not only are they possessed of property but they live in the condition of men who set the greatest store upon their property.
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In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
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In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other prohibiting him from thinking at all.
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When none but the wealthy had watches, they were almost all very good ones few are now made which are worth much, but everybody has one in his pocket.
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