Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly … - Alexis de Tocqueville

The principle of equality does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth.

The happy and powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune.

Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.