The aspect of American society is animated, because men and things are always changing; but it is monotonous, because all the changes are alike.
Interpretation
American society is full of constant change, yet these changes lack diversity and uniqueness.
Alexis De Tocqueville highlights a paradox in American society where there is an illusion of vibrant change due to the constant flux of events and people, but upon closer inspection, these changes are fundamentally similar, leading to a sense of monotony. This suggests that while society appears dynamic on the surface, it can lack depth and variety in its transformations.
In practice
In a discussion about societal trends at a conference on urban development.
Democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom: left to themselves they will seek it, cherish it, and view any deprivation of it with regret. But for equality their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery.
Religion, which never intervenes directly in the government of American society, should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions
The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.
The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer without complaint, and to die singing.
Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.
When none but the wealthy had watches, they were almost all very good ones; few are now made which are worth much, but everybody has one in his pocket.
We can go on talking about racism and who treated whom badly, but what are you going to do about it? Are you going to wallow in that or are you going to create your own agenda?
History reminds us that revolutions are not events, so much that theyβre processes β that for tens of thousands of years, people have been making decisions that irrevocably shaped the world that we live in today; just as today, we are making subtle, irrevocable decisions that people of the future will remember as revolutions.
As soon as my trial was over, we tried to use the energy that had developed around my case to create another organization, which we called the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression.
President Kennedy has named two Negroes to District Judgeships and appointed Thurgood Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals. When I came to the Department of Justice, there were only ten Negroes employed as lawyers; not a single Negro served as a United States Attorney - or ever had in the history of the country. That has been changed.
We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.
Equality for men and women, across the world, not only in sports, is the goal. We obviously have a long way to go, but every little bit helps.
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