Whatever may be the general endeavor of a community to render its members equal and alike, the personal pride of individuals will always seek to rise above the line, and to form somewhere an inequality to their own advantage.
Alexis de TocquevilleThere is, indeed, a most dangerous passage in the history of a democratic people. When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education and their experience of free institutions, the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint at the sight of new possessions they are about to obtain. In their intense and exclusive anxiety to make a fortune they lose sight of the close connection that exists between the private fortune of each and the prosperity of all.
Alexis de TocquevilleTo remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
Alexis de TocquevilleSociety is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
Alexis de Tocqueville