Democracy In America Quotes

“Hence this maxim: that the individual is the best as well as the only judge of his particular interest, and that society has the right to direct his actions only when it feels itself injured by his deed or when it needs to demand his cooperation.”
― Alexis De Toqueville, Democracy In America

“A man believes implicitly because he adopts a proposition without inquiry. He doubts as soon as he is assailed by the objections which his inquiries have aroused. But he frequently succeeds in satisfying these doubts. Then he begins to believe afresh. He no longer lays hold on a truth in its most shadowy and uncertain form, but he sees it clearly before him, and he advances onwards by the light it gives him. It may, however, be doubted whether this rational and self-guiding conviction arouses as much fervor or enthusiastic devotedness in men as their first dogmatical belief.”
― Alexis De Toqueville, Democracy In America

“There is no medium between servitude and extreme license. In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits which the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils which it engenders. To expect to acquire the former and to escape the latter is to cherish one of those illusions which commonly mislead nations in their times of sickness when tired with faction and exhausted by effort they attempt to combine hostile opinions and contrary principles upon the same soil.”
― Alexis De Toqueville, Democracy In America

“It is impossible to believe that equality will not eventually find its way into the political world as it does everywhere else. To conceive of men remaining forever unequal upon one single point, yet equal on all others, is impossible. They must come in the end to be equal upon all.
Now I know of only two methods of establishing equality in the political world. Every citizen must be put in possession of his rights, or rights must be granted to no one. For nations which are arrived at the same stage of social existence as the Anglo-Americans, it is therefore very difficult to discover a medium between the sovereignty of all and the absolute power of one man. And it would be vain to deny that the social condition which I have been describing is equally liable to each of these consequences.
There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great. But there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality. which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level. and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.”
― Alexis De Toqueville, Democracy In America

“The law of partition has reduced all to one level. I do not mean that there is any deficiency of wealthy individuals in the United States. I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men, and where the profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent equality of property.”
― Alexis De Toqueville, Democracy In America