Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Nature
Violent
Unbelief
Cannot
Brought
Pious
States
Mankind
Sentiments
Back
Sort
Accident
Without
Religious
Abandon
Kind
State
Accidents
Men
Faith
Permanent
Aberration
True
Intellect
Distortion

More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

Image
If I were asked ... to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
The civil jury is the most effective form of sovereignty of the people. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During the reigns of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and Elizabeth I (1158-1603), the civil jury did in reality save the liberties of England.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
The evil which one suffers patiently as inevitable seems insupportable as soon as he conceives the idea of escaping from it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
At the head of any new undertaking where in France you would find the government, or in England some great lord, in the United States you are sure to find an association.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Despotism may be able to do without religion, but democracy cannot.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Rulers who destroy men's freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. ... They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
In the United States, associations are established to promote the public safety, commerce, industry, morality, and religion. There is no end which the human will despairs of attaining through the combined power of individuals united into a society.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
The electors see their representative not only as a legislator for the state but also as the natural protector of local interests in the legislature indeed, they almost seem to think that he has a power of attorney to represent each constituent, and they trust him to be as eager in their private interests as in those of the country.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Nothing is more annoying in the ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. A foreigner will gladly agree to praise much in their country, but he would like to be allowed to criticize something, and that he is absolutely refused.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
I know of no other country where love of money has such a grip on men's hearts or where stronger scorn is expressed for the theory of permanent equality of property
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
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
Image
Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy those who had anything united in common terror.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are not disinterested, but they are gentle.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
I am unaware of his plans but I shall never stop believing in them because I cannot fathom them and I prefer to mistrust my own intellectual capacities than his justice.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
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