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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
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Alexis de Tocqueville
Age: 53 †
Born: 1805
Born: July 29
Died: 1859
Died: April 16
Historian
Jurist
Philosopher
Politician
Sociologist
Writer
Paris
France
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clerel de Tocqueville
Great
Democratic
Dragged
Something
Sort
Seeming
Always
Happen
Assembly
Think
Public
Intended
Thinking
Goal
Vague
Rather
Frequently
Assemblies
Happens
March
Perplexed
Must
Debate
Debates
More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville
I do not find fault with equality for drawing men into the pursuit of forbidden pleasures, but for absorbing them entirely in the search for the pleasures that are permitted.
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The French constitute the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation in Europe and the best qualified in turn to become an object of admiration, hatred, pity or terror but never indifference.
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In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.
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Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
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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
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Men seldom take the opinion of their equal, or of a man like themselves, upon trust.
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In democratic centuries, on the contrary, when the duties of each individual toward the species are much clearer, devotion toward one man becomes rarer: the bond of human affections is extended and loosened.
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The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
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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.
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To get the inestimable good that freedom of the press assures one must know how to submit to the inevitable evil it gives rise to.
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In America one of the first things done in a new State is to make the post go there in the forests of Michigan there is no cabin so isolated, no valley so wild, but that letters and newspapers arrive at least once a week.
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Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity.
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History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery containing a host of copies and very few originals.
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Among these widely differing families of men, the first that attracts attention, the superior in intelligence, in power, and in enjoyment, is the white, or European, the MAN pre-eminently so called, below him appear the Negro and the Indian.
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What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.
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A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just and its justice constitutes its greatness and beauty.
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But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.
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Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint imposed upon her by the laws of man.
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We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
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The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal, but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness.
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