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Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint imposed upon her by the laws of man.

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
Men
Constraint
Secretly
Constraints
Imposed
Laws
Law
Upon
Nature
Avenges

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Can it be believed that the democracy, which has overthrown the feudal system and vanquished kings, will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists?
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The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
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Of all nations, those submit to civilization with the most difficulty which habitually live by the chase.
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On this waterlogged landscape....are scattered palaces and hovels....It is here that the human spirit becomes perfect, and at the same time brutalised, that civilisation produces its marvels and that civilised man returns to the savage.
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I have always noticed in politics how often men are ruined by having too good a memory.
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A man's admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.
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Better use has been made of association and this powerful instrument of action has been applied for more varied aims in America than anywhere else in the world.
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In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are not disinterested, but they are gentle.
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Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
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It is the dissimilarities and inequalities among men which give rise to the notion of honor as such differences become less, it grows feeble and when they disappear, it will vanish too.
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We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.
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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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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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History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery containing a host of copies and very few originals.
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I know of no other country where love of money has such a grip on men's hearts or where stronger scorn is expressed for the theory of permanent equality of property
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Nothing is more annoying in the ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. A foreigner will gladly agree to praise much in their country, but he would like to be allowed to criticize something, and that he is absolutely refused.
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The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it.
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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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There is one universal law that has been formed, or at least adoptedby the majority of mankind. That law is justice. Justice forms the cornerstone of each nation's law.
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The electors see their representative not only as a legislator for the state but also as the natural protector of local interests in the legislature indeed, they almost seem to think that he has a power of attorney to represent each constituent, and they trust him to be as eager in their private interests as in those of the country.
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