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The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.

Alexis de Tocqueville

I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Dignity Human Liberty Love Passion
If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States – that is to say, they will owe their origin not to the equality but to the inequality of conditions.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Black Equality Greatness Presence Race Revolution
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Justice Kind Law Man Myself People Right Simplicity
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Equality Himself Leadership Men Thinking
I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Doubt Man Myself People Vote
Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Enemy Friendship Men Truth
The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Give Up Politics Vocabulary Word
There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Country Institution Law Moral World
If I were asked to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Education Growth Myself Prosperity Strength Women
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Independent Necessary Opinion Politics relief
Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Believe Exercise Illegal Men Oppression Power Rule
Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Divine Liberty
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Darkness Future Inspirational Motivational Past Spirit Walk
The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Best Law Moral Worst
Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Necessary Reality Simplicity
When a large number of organs of the press come to advance along the same track, their influence becomes almost irresistible in the long term, and public opinion, struck always from the same side, ends by yielding under their blows.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

End Media News Opinion Politics