Insightful quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville

Californians voted to extend an income tax surcharge on the rich, and I was look for that quote about democracies failing when the people learned that they could vote extra largess by taking it from others. The idea of letting poor people vote to take money from rich people struck me as wrong, just like politicians tax visitors who rent cars and stay in hotels to pay for those convention centers.

Anyway, I stumbled across Alexis de Tocqueville, a visionary thinker from the 1800's. Here are some samples:

On the above subject:

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

On Islam:

 I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. So far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.

On Socialism:

As for me, I am deeply a democrat; this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can't have it both ways.

Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude