Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes

Laws are subordinate to custom.

Societies are not sustainable without institutions.

And we had our own laws. I mean, I wrote them. And we had our own customs, and traditions, and proprieties.

Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor.

The laws of a country are a reflection of the values of the people.

Institutions are what allow us to have continuity in civilizations.

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

Societies depend on agreed rules.

Society cannot exist without law. Law is the bond of society: that which makes it, that which preserves it and keeps it together. It is, in fact, the essence of civil society.

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.

In the stable periods of history, meaning was supplied in the context of a coherent community and traditionally prescribed patterns of culture. Today we cannot count on any such inheritance.

Some laws are not written, but are more decisive than any written law.

A civilization is a social entity that manifests religious, political legal, and customary uniformity over an extended period, and which confers on its members the benefits of socially accumulated knowledge.

… a country's laws are written upon paper, and that its customs are engraved upon brass. One may play with the one, but not with the other. It is less risky for a stranger to dance upon our Constitution in the public square than to affront one of our solidified customs. The one is merely eminently respectable, the other is sacred.

Culture is a product of law. And laws create norms for society. This is why anyone who wants to change the culture of a country must try to change the norms of the country.

The Law is one aspect of a much more concrete and encompassing relation than the relation between commanding and obeying that characterizes the imperative.

Stability is why society has an interest in marriage.

No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.

Property with peace and order; with civil and social manners ... are good things too; and, without them, liberty is not a benefit ... not likely to continue long.

If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones.

We have traditions, attitudes, an attachment to social welfare and even if change is desirable, we won’t accept change overnight.

In America power comes in the form of law and money.

... legislating to regulate cultural change is like lassoing a locomotive with a cobweb.

Law is largely crystallized custom.