Sublime

La liberté s’est manifestée aux hommes dans différents temps et sous différentes formes ; elle ne s’est point attachée exclusivement à un état social, et on la rencontre autre part que dans les démocraties. Elle ne saurait donc former le caractère distinctif des siècles démocratiques. Le fait particulier et dominant qui singularise ces siècles, c’e

In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their overpowering strength; and I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the very inadequate securities which exist against tyranny.

Democracy appears to me to be much better adapted for the peaceful conduct of society, or for an occasional effort of remarkable vigor, than for the hardy and prolonged endurance of the storms which beset the political existence of nations.

Si Alexis de Tocqueville dérange, c’est surtout parce qu’il a cherché à penser le monde qui naissait, autour de la démocratie et de l’égalité des conditions, sans pour autant l’aimer ou le célébrer. Bien au contraire, il en a d’emblée analysé et cerné les risques pour la liberté elle-même.

That which was experimental in our plan of government was the question whether democratic rule could be so organized and conducted that it would not degenerate into license and result in the tyranny of absolutism, without saving to the people the power so often found necessary of repressing or destroying their enemy, when he was found in the person

The Americans have a federal and the French a national Government.

The influence of prosperity acts still more freely upon the American than upon strangers. The American has always seen the connection of public order and public prosperity, intimately united as they are, go on before his eyes; he does not conceive that one can subsist without the other; he has therefore nothing to forget; nor has he, like so many E

The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated.

The Union has no neighbors—No metropolis—The Americans have had the chances of birth in their favor—America an empty country—How this circumstance contributes powerfully to the maintenance of the democratic republic in America—How