Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Wealth

Quotes about: Wealth

• 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Work, Men, People

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.184

• No stigma attaches to the love of money in America, and provided it does not exceed the bounds imposed by public order, it is held in honor. The American will describe as noble and estimable ambition that our medieval ancestors would have called base cupidity.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Ambition, America, Order

• In democratic countries as well as elsewhere most of the branches of productive industry are carried on at a small cost by men little removed by their wealth or education above the level of those whom they employ.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Men, Cost

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2004). “Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II”, p.488, Bantam Classics

• 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

• It is certain that despotism ruins individuals by preventing them from producing wealth much more than by depriving them of what they have already produced; it dries up the source of riches, while it usually respects acquired property. Freedom, on the contrary, produces far more goods than it destroys; and the nations which are favored by free institutions invariably find that their resources increase even more rapidly than their taxes.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Riches, Ruins, Wealth

• 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

• Men living in democratic times have many passions, but most of their passions either end in the love of riches, or proceed from it.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Passion, Men, Riches

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.278

• Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Past, Vices, Energy

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

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