There is one universal law that has been formed, or at least adoptedby the majority of mankind. That law is justice. Justice forms the cornerstone of each nation's law.
Alexis de TocquevilleThe Americans make associations to give entertainment, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner, they found hospitals, prisons and schools.
Alexis de TocquevilleEquality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: "Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I."
Alexis de TocquevilleIt is almost never when a state of things is the most detestable that it is smashed, but when, beginning to improve, it permits men to breathe, to reflect, to communicate their thoughts with each other, and to gauge by what they already have the extent of their rights and their grievances. The weight, although less heavy, seems then all the more unbearable.
Alexis de Tocqueville[T]he main evil of the present democratic institutions of the united states does not raise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny.
Alexis de Tocqueville