Alexis de Tocqueville

When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.

The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.

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.

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class.

The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.

There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.

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?

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.