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With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs.

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
Possible
Skill
American
Affair
Power
Concern
Care
Skills
Much
Number
Township
People
Broken
Fragments
Numbers
Maximum
Public
Affairs

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So many of my thoughts and feelings are shared by the English that England has turned into a second native land of the mind for me.
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As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?
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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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The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
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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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There is no philosopher in the world so great but he believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates.
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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
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In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.
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Men living in democratic times have many passions, but most of their passions either end in the love of riches, or proceed from it.
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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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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.
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One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government...is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.
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I am far from denying that newspapers in democratic countries lead citizens to do very ill-considered things in common but without newspapers there would be hardly any common action at all. So they mend many more ills than they cause.
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The happy and powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune.
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The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.
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No men are less addicted to reverie than the citizens of a democracy.
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When, after having examined in detail the organization of the Supreme Court, one comes to consider in sum the prerogatives that have been given it, one discovers without difficulty that a more immense judicial power has never been constituted in any people.
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