Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Habits

Quotes about: Habits

• It is indeed difficult to imagine how men who have entirely renounced the habit of managing their own affairs could be successful in choosing those who ought to lead them. It is impossible to believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever emerge from the ballots of a nation of servants.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Wise, Believe, Successful

• 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

• Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Believe, Exercise, Men

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2004). “Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II”, p.39, Bantam Classics

• 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

• I considered mores to be one of the great general causes responsible for the maintenance of a democratic republic . . . the term "mores" . . . meaning . . . habits of the heart.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Heart, Maintenance, Republic

• Step back in time; look closely at the child in the very arms of his mother; see the external world reflected for the first time in the yet unclear mirror of his understanding; study the first examples which strike his eyes; listen to the first words which arouse within him the slumbering power of thought; watch the first struggles which he has to undergo; only then will you comprehend the source of his prejudices, the habits, and the passions which are to rule his life. The entire man, so to speak, comes fully formed in the wrappings of his cradle.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Mother, Children, Struggle

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

• If a [democratic] society displays less brilliance than an aristocracy, there will also be less wretchedness; pleasures will be less outrageous and wellbeing will be shared by all; the sciences will be on a smaller scale but ignorance will be less common; opinions will be less vigorous and habits gentler; you will notice more vices and fewer crimes.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Ignorance, Vices, Aristocracy

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

• To commit violent and unjust acts, it is not enough for a government to have the will or even the power; the habits, ideas and passions of the time must lend themselves to their committal.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Passion, Government, Ideas

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1896). “Recollections”, p.149, Library of Alexandria

• The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Ignorance, Simple, Civilization

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2015). “Democracy in America - Vol. I. and II.”, p.336, Read Books Ltd

• 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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