The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things; everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville

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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

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In politics, shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville

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In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville

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The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is almost always an improvement on its immediate predecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville

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History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery containing a host of copies and very few originals.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville

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As for me, I am deeply a democrat; this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can’t have it both ways.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville

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We are sleeping on a volcano. A wind of revolution blows, the storm is on the horizon.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville

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Born under another sky, placed in the middle of an always-moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which sweeps along everything that surrounds him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything; he grows accustomed to naught but change, and concludes by viewing it as the natural state of man; he feels a need for it; even more, he loves it: for instability, instead of occurring to him in the form of disasters, seems to give birth to nothing around him but wonders.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville

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

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