Everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure

— Alexis de Tocqueville

Every nation that has ended in tyranny has come to that end by way of good order. It certainly does not follow from this that peoples should scorn public peace, but neither should they be satisfied with that and nothing more. A nation that asks nothing of government, but the maintenance of order is already a slave in the depths of its heart; it is a slave of its well-being, ready for the man who will put it in chains.

— Alexis de Tocqueville

For benefits by their very greatness spotlight the difference in conditions and arouse a secret annoyance in those who profit from them. But the charm of simple good manners is almost irresistible.

— Alexis de Tocqueville

He who in given cases consents to obey his fellows with servility, and who submits his will, and even his thoughts, to their control, how can he pretend that he wishes to be free?

— Alexis de Tocqueville

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

— Alexis de Tocqueville

Human understanding more easily invents new things than new words.

— Alexis de Tocqueville

I am unaware of his plans, but I shall never stop believing in them because I cannot fathom them and I prefer to mistrust my own intellectual capacities than his justice.

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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.

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

I had rather mistrusted my own capacity than God's justice.

— Alexis de Tocqueville