“The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democracy, from beneath which the old aristocratic colors sometimes peep.”
More from Tocqueville on Democracy
Others on Democracy
Sir Winston Churchill
3 quotes“it is the people who control the Government, not the Government the people.”
Woodrow Wilson
3 quotes“I believe in Democracy because it releases the energies of every human being.”
H. L. Mencken
2 quotes“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
Barack Obama
2 quotes“When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that, in our democrac...”
Thomas Jefferson
2 quotes“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other f...”
Abraham Lincoln
1 quote“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1 quote“If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to men.”
Aldous Huxley
1 quote“If you believe in democracy, make arrangements to distribute property as widely as possible.”
Pope John Paul II
1 quote“A democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”
Aung San Suu Kyi
1 quote“I've always tried to explain democracy is not perfect. But it gives you a chance to shape your own destiny.”
Cicero
1 quote“In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.”
Reinhold Niebuhr
1 quote“Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”