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Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.

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
Materials
Freedom
Long
Never
Prize
Kept
Material
Benefits
Offers

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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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One has freedom as the principal means of action the other has servitude. Their . . . paths [are] diverse nevertheless, each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world.
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The evil which one suffers patiently as inevitable seems insupportable as soon as he conceives the idea of escaping from it.
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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
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Whatever may be the general endeavor of a community to render its members equal and alike, the personal pride of individuals will always seek to rise above the line, and to form somewhere an inequality to their own advantage.
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Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.
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Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.
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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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In politics a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
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The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer without complaint, and to die singing.
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The principle of equality does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth.
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Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
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Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.
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When fortune has been abolished, when every profession is open to everyone, an ambitious man may think it is easy to launch himself on a great career and feel that he has been called to no common destiny. But this is a delusion which experience quickly corrects.
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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
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The position of the Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.
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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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