Alexis de Tocqueville

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality. ”

We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects. ”

In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships. ”

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith. ”

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. ”

There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin. ”