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

I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.

I have always thought that in revolutions, especially democratic revolutions, madmen, not those so called by courtesy, but genuine madmen, have played a very considerable political part. One thing is certain, and that is that a condition of semi-madness is not unbecoming at such times, and often even leads to success.

The public, therefore, among a democratic people, has a singular power, which aristocratic nations cannot conceive; for it does not persuade others to its beliefs, but it imposes them and makes them permeate the thinking of everyone by a sort of enormous pressure of the mind of all upon the individual intelligence.