Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes - Page 4

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• The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Reflection, Law, Moral

  "De la supériorité des mœurs sur les lois". Oeuvres complètes, Volume VIII, p. 286., 1831.

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• 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

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• As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Money, Character, Answers

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Roger Boesche, James Toupin (1986). “Selected Letters on Politics and Society”, p.39, Univ of California Press

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• What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Hands, Class

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Seymour Drescher, Gertrude Himmelfarb (1997). “Memoir on pauperism”, Ivan R Dee

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• The world belongs to those with the most energy.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Energy, World

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• However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Pride, Equality, Trying

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

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• Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Doe, Chance, Prepared

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1896). “Recollections”, p.93, Library of Alexandria

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• Military discipline is merely a perfection of social servitude.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Military, Discipline, Perfection

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Arthur Goldhammer (2004). “Democracy in America”, p.777, Library of America

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• 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?

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Faith, Ties, People

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1862). “Democracy in America”, p.393

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• Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Enemy

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.5

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• The character of Anglo-American civilization . . . is the product . . . of two perfectly distinct elements that elsewhere have often made war with each other, but which, in America, they have succeeded in incorporating somehow into one another and combining marvelously. I mean to speak of the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  War, Character, Mean

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• Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Moving, Men, Two

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2003). “Democracy in America”, p.708, Regnery Publishing

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• I have an intellectual inclination for democratic institutions, but I am instinctively an aristocrat, which means that I despise and fear the masses. I passionately love liberty, legality, the respect for rights, but not democracy....liberty is my foremost passion. That is the truth.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Mean, Passion, Rights

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• In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other prohibiting him from thinking at all.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Thinking, Two

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1840). “Democracy in America”, p.19

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• I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, World, Paganism

  "The Tocqueville Reader: A Life in Letters and Politics". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville; edited by Olivier Zunz and Alan S. Kahan, p. 229, 2002.

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• All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Peace, War, Mean

  Democracy in America vol. 2, sec. 3, ch. 22 (1840) (translation by Henry Reeve)

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• I have always noticed in politics how often men are ruined by having too good a memory.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Memories, Men, Ruined

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1995). “Recollections: the French Revolution of 1848”, p.37, Transaction Publishers

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• There are at the present time two great nations in the world - allude to the Russians and the Americans. All other nations seem to have nearly reached their national limits, and have only to maintain their power; these alone are proceeding along a path to which no limit can be perceived.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Two, World, Limits

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

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• Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  People, Despise

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• Every nation that has ended in tyranny has come to that end by way of good order. It certainly does not follow from this that peoples should scorn public peace, but neither should they be satisfied with that and nothing more. A nation that asks nothing of government but the maintenance of order is already a slave in the depths of its heart; it is a slave of its well-being, ready for the man who will put it in chains.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Heart, Men, Order

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• Slavery...dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Ignorance, Pride, Men

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2001). “Democracy in America”, p.37, Penguin

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• The principle of equality does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Equality, Egalitarianism, Imagination

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

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• Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Institutions, Accustomed

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• The position of the Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  People, May, Democratic

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2003). “Democracy in America”, p.440, Barnes & Noble Publishing

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• When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Law, People, Justice

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2001). “Democracy in America”, p.107, Penguin

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