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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

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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
Another
Civilization
Distinct
Two
American
Elsewhere
America
Freedom
Perfectly
Character
Religion
Product
Marvelously
Mean
War
Somehow
Incorporating
Made
Often
Morality
Anglo
Speak
Elements
Combining
Spirit
Products
Succeeded

More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

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Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
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The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
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Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint imposed upon her by the laws of man.
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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.
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When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
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The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.
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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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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.
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It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life.
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In the United States, except for slaves, servants and the destitute fed by townships, everyone has the vote and this is an indirect contributor to law-making. Anyone wishing to attack the law is thus reduced to adopting one of two obvious courses: they must either change the nation's opinion or trample its wishes under foot.
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In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect, this may not prevent even the partisans of that very sect, from supporting him but if he attacks all the sects together, every one abandons him and he remains alone.
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In democratic countries, however opulent a man is supposed to be, he is almost always discontented with his fortune, because he finds that he is less rich than his father was, and he fears that his sons will be less rich than himself.
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There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.
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I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.
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America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man and in his eyes what is not yet done is only what he has not attempted to do. - from Democracy in America
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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.
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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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I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support
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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.
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To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
Alexis de Tocqueville