Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes - Page 12

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A French observer is surprised to hear how often an English or an American lawyer quotes the opinions of others, and how little he alludes to his own; ... This abnegation of his own opinion, and this implicit deference to the opinion of his forefathers, which are common to the English and American lawyer, this servitude of thought which he is obliged to profess, necessarily give him more timid habits and more conservative inclinations in England and America than in France.

Alexis de Tocqueville

England And America, Law, Giving

Alexis De Tocqueville (2004). “Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II”, p.235, Bantam Classics

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The only authors whom I acknowledge as American are the journalists. They, indeed, are not great writers, but they speak the language of their countrymen, and make themselves heard by them.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Journalism, Language, Speak

Alexis de Tocqueville (1840). “Democracy in America”, p.112

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On this waterlogged landscape....are scattered palaces and hovels....It is here that the human spirit becomes perfect, and at the same time brutalised, that civilisation produces its marvels and that civilised man returns to the savage.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Men, Cities, Perfect

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Of all nations, those submit to civilization with the most difficulty which habitually live by the chase.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Civilization, World, Difficulty

Alexis De Tocqueville (2004). “Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II”, p.280, Bantam Classics

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I cannot believe that a republic could subsist if the influence of the lawyers in public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the people.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Believe, People, Republic

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A great democratic revolution is taking place in our midst.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Revolution, Midst, Democratic

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In democratic countries, however opulent a man is supposed to be, he is almost always discontented with his fortune, because he finds that he is less rich than his father was, and he fears that his sons will be less rich than himself.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Country, Father, Son

Alexis De Tocqueville (2004). “Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II”, p.463, Bantam Classics

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All around you everything is on the move.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Moving

"Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville (1835-1840). Edited by J. P. Mayer, translated by George Lawrence, vol. 1, part 2, chapter 6, p. 242, 1969.

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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.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Fall, Church, World

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

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Local assemblies of the people constitute the strength of free nations. Municipal institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science: they bring it within the people's reach, and teach them how to use and enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.

Alexis de Tocqueville

School, Government, People

Alexis de Tocqueville (1851). “The Republic of the United States of America: And Its Political Institutions, Reviewed and Examined”, p.62

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[R]eligion cannot share the material strength of the rulers without being burdened with some of the animosity roused against them.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Church, Share, States

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

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In America a woman loses her independence for ever in the bonds of matrimony. While there is less constraint on girls there than anywhere else, a wife submits to stricter obligations. For the former, her father's house is a home of freedom and pleasure; for the latter, her husband's is almost a cloister.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Marriage, Girl, Husband

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

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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.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Wisdom, Country, Men

Alexis De Tocqueville (2004). “Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II”, p.534, Bantam Classics

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To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to mimic nature, to ransack the world in order to gratify the passions of a man, is not thought of, but to add a few yards of land to your field, to plant an orchard, or enlarge a dwelling, to always be making life more comfortable and convenient, to avoid trouble, and to satisfy the smallest wants without effort and almost without cost. These are small objects, but the soul clings to them; it dwells upon them closely and day by day, till they at last shut out the rest of the world and sometimes intervene between itself and heaven.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Passion, Men, Dwelling

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Religion, which never intervenes directly in the government of American society, should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions

Alexis de Tocqueville

Government, Political, Firsts

Alexis de Tocqueville (2007). “Democracy in America: An Annotated Text Backgrounds Interpretations”, W W Norton & Company Incorporated

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In the United States, associations are established to promote the public safety, commerce, industry, morality, and religion. There is no end which the human will despairs of attaining through the combined power of individuals united into a society.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Despair, Collaboration, United States

"Democracy in America".

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In the absence of government each man learns to think, to act for himself, without counting on the support of an outside force which, however vigilant one supposes it to be, can never answer all social needs. Man, thus accustomed to seek his well-being only through his own efforts, raises himself in his own opinion as he does in the opinion of others; his soul becomes larger and stronger at the same time.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Men, Thinking, Support

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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.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Powerful, America, Democracy

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

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In democracies, nothing is more great or more brilliant than commerce: it attracts the attention of the public, and fills the imagination of the multitude; all energetic passions are directed towards it.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Passion, Imagination, Democracy

Alexis de Tocqueville (1847). “Democracy in America”

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The man who submits to violence is debased by his compliance; but when he submits to that right of authority which he acknowledges in a fellow creature, he rises in some measure above the person who give the command.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Men, Giving, Violence

Alexis de Tocqueville (1839). “Democracy in America”, p.241

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The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Thinking, Goal, March

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

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General ideas are no proof of the strength, but rather of the insufficiency of the human intellect.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Ideas, Proof, Intellect

Alexis de Tocqueville (1847). “Democracy in America”

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With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Skills, Numbers, People

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

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The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is almost always an improvement on its immediate predecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Government, Reform, Critical Moments

Alexis de Tocqueville (2012). “The Old Regime and the French Revolution”, p.214, Courier Corporation

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Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Vision, Democracy, Care

Democracy in America vol. 2, sec. 1, ch. 17 (1840) (translation by Henry Reeve)

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Born: July 29, 1805
Died: April 16, 1859
Occupation: Historian
Cite this Page: Citation

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