James Scott

“Every nation that has ended in tyranny has come to that end by way of good order. It certainly does not follow from this that peoples should scorn public peace, but neither should they be satisfied with that and nothing more. A nation that asks nothing of government but the maintenance of order is already a slave in the depths of its heart; it is a slave of its well-being, ready for the man who will put it in chains.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“On close inspection, we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity of an absolute government.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“I follow the course marked out by my principles and, what is more, enjoy a deep and noble pleasure in following it. You deeply despise the human race, at least our part of it; you think it not only fallen but incapable of ever rising again... For my part, as I feel neither the right nor the wish to entertain such opinions of my species and my country, I think it is not necessary to despair of them. In my opinion, human societies, like individuals, amount to something only in liberty...And God forbid that my mind should ever be crossed by the thought that it is necessary to despair of success... You will allow me to have less confidence in your teaching than in the goodness and justice of God.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville