Society is convulsed by great parties, by minor ones it is agitated
 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835). copy citation

add
Author Alexis de Tocqueville
Source Democracy in America
Topic minor party
Date 1835
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Henry Reeve
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/815/815-h/815-h.htm

Context

“The means they employ are as wretched as the end at which they aim. Hence it arises that when a calm state of things succeeds a violent revolution, the leaders of society seem suddenly to disappear, and the powers of the human mind to lie concealed. Society is convulsed by great parties, by minor ones it is agitated; it is torn by the former, by the latter it is degraded; and if these sometimes save it by a salutary perturbation, those invariably disturb it to no good end. America has already lost the great parties which once divided the nation;” source