Best 352 quotes of Alexis De Tocqueville on MyQuotes

Alexis De Tocqueville

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare them for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

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

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    A great democratic revolution is taking place in our midst.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    All revolutions more or less threaten the tenure of property: but most of those who live in democratic countries are possessed of property - not only are they possessed of property but they live in the condition of men who set the greatest store upon their property.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    A long war almost always places nations in this sad alternative: that their defeat delivers them to destruction and their triumph to despotism.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    A man's admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    A man who raises himself by degrees to wealth and power, contracts, in the course of this protracted labor, habits of prudence and restraint which he cannot afterwards shake off. A man cannot gradually enlarge his mind as he does his house.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    America is a country where they have freedom of speech but everyone says the same thing.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man; and in his eyes what is not yet done is only what he has not attempted to do. - from Democracy in America

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.... The subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types-religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute....At the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Among a democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth, every man works to earn a living, or is born of parents who have worked. The notion of labor is therefore presented to the mind, on every side, as the necessary, natural, and honest condition.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Amongst democratic nations, each new generation is a new people.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Amongst democratic nations men easily attain a certain equality of conditions: they can never attain the equality they desire. It perpetually retires from before them, yet without hiding itself from their sight, and in retiring draws them on. At every moment they think they are about to grasp it; it escapes at every moment from their hold. They are near enough to see its charms, but too far off to enjoy them; and before they have fully tasted its delights they die.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Among the droves of men with political ambitions in the United States, I found very few with that virile candor, that manly independence of thought, that often distinguished Americans in earlier times and that is invariably the preeminent trait of great characters wherever it exists.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Among the laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it seems to me, than all the others. If men are to remain civilized or to become civilized, the art of association must develop and improve among them at the same speed as equality of conditions spreads.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Among these widely differing families of men, the first that attracts attention, the superior in intelligence, in power, and in enjoyment, is the white, or European, the MAN pre-eminently so called, below him appear the Negro and the Indian.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say 'Gentlemen' to the person with whom he is conversing.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    A newspaper is an adviser who does not require to be sought, but who comes of his own accord, and talks to you briefly every day of the common wealth, without distracting you from your private affairs.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Any measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    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. Socialism is a new form of slavery.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    As I see it, only God can be all-powerful without danger, because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. Thus there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment (p. 290).

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just; and its justice constitutes its greatness and beauty.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    At the head of any new undertaking where in France you would find the government, or in England some great lord, in the United States you are sure to find an association.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Because Roman civilization perished through barbarian invasions, we are perhaps too much inclined to think that that is the only way a civilization can die. If the lights that guide us ever go out, they will fade little by little, as if of their own accord.... We therefore should not console ourselves by thinking that the barbarians are still a long way off. Some peoples may let the torch be snatched from their hands, but others stamp it out themselves.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Better use has been made of association and this powerful instrument of action has been applied for more varied aims in America than anywhere else in the world.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Born often under another sky, placed in the middle of an always moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which draws all about him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything, he grows accustomed only to change, and ends by regarding it as the natural state of man. He feels the need of it, more he loves it; for the instability; instead of meaning disaster to him, seems to give birth only to miracles all about him.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Can it be believed that the democracy, which has overthrown the feudal system and vanquished kings, will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists?

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Comfort becomes a goal when distinctions of rank are abolished and privileges destroyed.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort. Do not talk to him about the interests and rights of the human race; that little private business of his for the moment absorbs all his thoughts, and he hopes that public disturbances can be put off to some other time.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Despotism may be able to do without religion, but democracy cannot.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    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.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Democracy does not create strong ties between people. But it does make living together easier.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Democracy encourages a taste for physical gratification; this taste, if it becomes excessive, soon disposes men to believe that all is matter only; and materialism, in its turn, hurries them on with mad impatience to these same delights; such is the fatal circle within which democratic nations are driven round. It were well that they should see the danger and hold back.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    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.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and themselves.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Despotism can do without faith but freedom cannot.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: "Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    European Christianity has allowed itself to be intimately united with the powers of this world. Now that these powers are falling, it is as if it were buried under their ruins.

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    Alexis De Tocqueville

    Even despots accept the excellence of liberty. The simple truth is that they wish to keep it for themselves and promote the idea that no one else is at all worthy of it. Thus, our opinion of liberty does not reveal our differences but the relative value which we place on our fellow man. We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.