We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

I do not find fault with equality for drawing men into the pursuit of forbidden pleasures, but for absorbing them entirely in the search for the pleasures that are permitted.

All around you everything is on the move.

I questioned the faithful of all communions; I particularly sought the society of clergymen, who are the depositories of the various creeds and have a personal interest in their survival ... all thought the main reason for the quiet sway of religion over their country was the complete separation of church and state. I have no hesitation in stating that throughout my stay in America I met nobody, lay or cleric, who did not agree about that.

The foremost or indeed sole condition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality or to get men to believe you love it. Thus, the science of despotism, which was once so complex, has been simplified and reduced, as it were, to a single principle.

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.