Sublime

Tocqueville possédait assurément la vision d’un homme d’État mais restait étranger à la politique partisane et mal à l’aise avec l’éloquence parlementaire à laquelle sa fragile constitution ne se prêtait guère.

axiom of political science in that country that the only way to neutralize the effect of public journals is to multiply them indefinitely.

Outre-Atlantique, Tocqueville constitue ainsi depuis le XIXe siècle à la fois une référence obligée pour les écoliers et étudiants ainsi qu’une source d’inspiration pour les chercheurs, notamment les sociologues qui ont exploré et débattu de ses thèses sur la décentralisation du pouvoir et la participation des citoyens aux gouvernements locaux,

not because he is inferior to the authorities which conduct it, or that he is less capable than his neighbor of governing himself, but because he acknowledges the utility of an association with his fellow-men, and because he knows that no such association can exist without a regulating force.

The citizen of the United States is taught from his earliest infancy to rely upon his own exertions in order to resist the evils and the difficulties of life; he looks upon social authority with an eye of mistrust and anxiety, and he only claims its assistance when he is quite unable to shift without it.

The more we reflect upon all that occurs in the United States the more shall we be persuaded that the lawyers as a body form the most powerful, if not the only, counterpoise to the democratic element.

Now I know of only two methods of establishing equality in the political world; every citizen must be put in possession of his rights, or rights must be granted to no one.