Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes - Page 9

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It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in the great things than in the little ones, if it were possible to be secure of the one without the other.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Men, Thinking, Details Of Life

Alexis de Tocqueville (2001). “Democracy in America”, p.314, Penguin

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Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Men, Sight, Important

Alexis De Tocqueville (2009). “Democracy in America: Volumes I & II”, p.1164, The Floating Press

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If men are to remain civilized or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Art, Men, Together

Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.134

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Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort. Do not talk to him about the interests and rights of the human race; that little private business of his for the moment absorbs all his thoughts, and he hopes that public disturbances can be put off to some other time.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Rights, Race, Selfishness

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The First thing that strikes a traveler in the United States is the innumerable multitude of those who seek to emerge from their original condition; and the second is the rarity of lofty ambition to be observed in the midst of the universally ambitious stir of society. No Americans are devoid of a yearning desire to rise, but hardly any appear to entertain hopes of great magnitude or to pursue very lofty aims. All are constantly seeking to acquire property, power, and reputation.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Ambition, Ambitious, Desire

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

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In towns it is impossible to prevent men from assembling, getting excited together and forming sudden passionate resolves. Towns are like great meeting houses with all the inhabitants as members. In them the people wield immense influence over their magistrates and often carry their desires into execution without intermediaries.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Men, America, People

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

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[T]he main evil of the present democratic institutions of the united states does not raise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Country, Europe, Evil

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One of the distinguishing characteristics of a democratic period is the taste that all men have for easy success and present enjoyment. This occurs in the pursuits of the intellect as well as in others.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Men, Democracy, Taste

Alexis de Tocqueville (1840). “Democracy in America: Part the Second: The Social Influence of Democracy”, p.16

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The last thing abandoned by a party is its phraseology, because among political parties, as elsewhere, the vulgar make the language, and the vulgar abandon more easily the ideas that have been instilled into it than the words that it has learnt.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Party, Ideas, Political

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

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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.

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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

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The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Eye, Anxiety, Want

'Voyage en Angleterre et en Irlande de 1835' 18 May

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Of all the countries of the world America is the one where the movement of thought and human industry is the most continuous and swift.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Country, Countries Of The World, America

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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.

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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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Can it be believed that the democracy, which has overthrown the feudal system and vanquished kings, will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists?

Alexis de Tocqueville

Kings, Democracy, Feudal System

"Democracy in America".

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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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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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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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The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Ideas, Numbers, Democracy

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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Alexis de Tocqueville

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

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