Quotes from Alexis Tocqueville

Germans Francis Grund, and Francis Lieber, and the Pole Adam G. de Gurowski all wrote about the striking social equality they found in America, the absence of differences in status. They all noted the American obsession with work and the restless quest for the "almighty dollar."18

If, instead of all the diverse powers which excessively hindered or slowed down the flight of reason of the individual, democratic nations substituted the absolute power of a majority, only the character of this social ill would have been changed. Men would not have achieved the means of living independently; they would simply have lighted upon—a difficult enough task in itself—a new face of enslavement.

Mire, mi querido amigo, sólo hay una forma de hablar bien desde la tribuna, y consiste en estar plenamente convencido, al llegar a ella, de que se es el hombre más inteligente del mundo».