Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes - Page 10

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• Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Heart, Men, Clouds

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book Two, Chapter II, 1840.

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Success, Men, House

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1840). “Democracy in America”, p.245

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• They all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not
  meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, America, Peaceful

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Henry Reeve, Francis Bowen, Patrick Renshaw (1998). “Democracy in America”, p.121, Wordsworth Editions

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• The happy and powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Powerful, Men, Guarantees

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2016). “Democracy in America”, p.42, Xist Publishing

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• Lawyers belong to the people by birth and interest, and to the aristocracy by habit and taste; they may be looked upon as the connecting link of the two great classes of society.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Two, Class, People

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2001). “Democracy in America”, p.123, Penguin

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• Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life; what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Multicultural Society, Religion

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1990). “Democracy in America”

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• 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Regret, Passion, Equality

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book Two, Chapter I, 1840.

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• 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Religious, Government, Forever

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1990). “Democracy in America”

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• It is easy to see that, even in the freedom of early youth, an American girl never quite loses control of herself; she enjoys all permitted pleasures without losing her head about any of them, and her reason never lets the reins go, though it may often seem to let them flap.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Girl, Children, May

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1990). “Democracy in America”

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• So many of my thoughts and feelings are shared by the English that England has turned into a second native land of the mind for me.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Land, Feelings, Mind

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1979). “Journeys to England and Ireland”, p.13, Transaction Publishers

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• Nations are less disposed to make revolutions in proportion as personal property is augmented and distributed among them, and as the number of those possessing it is increased.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Wisdom, Numbers, Politics

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1840). “Democracy in America”, p.190

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• In America, more than anywhere else in the world, care has been taken constantly to trace clearly distinct spheres of action for the two sexes, and both are required to keep in step, but along paths that are never the same.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Sex, Taken, Equality

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1990). “Democracy in America”

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• Men cannot abandon their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect and a sort of violent distortion of their true nature; they are invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments. Unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state of mankind.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Religious, Men, Aberration

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2003). “Democracy in America”, p.282, Barnes & Noble Publishing

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• There is hardly a congressman prepared to go home until he has at least one speech printed and sent to his constituents, and he won't let anybody interrupt his harangue until he has made all his useful suggestions about the 24 states of the Union, and especially the district he represents.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Home, Government, Suggestions

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• 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

  Fear, Government, Long

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2004). “Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II”, p.95, Bantam Classics

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• He [Napoleon] was as great as a man can be without morality.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Sarcastic, Men, Morality

  "Discours de réception a L'Académie Française prononcé le 21 Avril 1842". Oeuvres complètes, vol. IX, p. 17, 1866.

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• I know without needing to hear the voice of the Creator that the stars trace out in space the orbits which His hand has drawn.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Stars, Hands, Voice

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville. Introduction, 1835.

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• We need a new political science for a new world.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Political, Needs, World

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Jennifer Pitts (2001). “Writings on Empire and Slavery”, p.11, JHU Press

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• The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Games, America, Battle

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1873). “American Institutions and Their Influence”, p.432

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• 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Doe, Common, Wealth

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

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Land, America, Improvement

  Alexis De Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy In America -- Vol. 1”, p.547

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• I see no clear reason why the doctrine of self-interest properly understood should turn men away from religious beliefs.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Religious, Men, Self

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2004). “Tocqueville: Democracy in America”, p.615, Library of America

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• The most formidable of all the ills that threaten the future of the Union arises from the presence of a black population upon its territory; and in contemplating the cause of the present embarrassments, or the future dangers of the United States, the observer is invariably led to this as a primary fact.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Black, Causes, Facts

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Henry Reeve, Francis Bowen, Patrick Renshaw (1998). “Democracy in America”, p.140, Wordsworth Editions

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• The last thing abandoned by a party is its phraseology.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Party, Lasts, Abandoned

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1861). “Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville”, p.277

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• [Liberty] considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Law, Liberty, Duration

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1862). “Democracy in America”, p.55

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