The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEThe American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEThe tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLELiberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEChristianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEA democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEAs 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?
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEAny measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLESociety is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLETo remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEIt is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEIf 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 TOCQUEVILLEThe 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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLERulers who destroy men’s freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. … They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLESlavery…dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEThere 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 TOCQUEVILLEDemocracy 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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