Quote

There is no philosopher in the world so great but he believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates.

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
Things
Million
World
Accepting
People
Millions
Faith
Demonstrates
Truth
Accepts
Many
Truths
Great
Believes
Believe
Philosopher

More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

Image
The Americans make associations to give entertainment, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes in this manner, they found hospitals, prisons and schools.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Religion, which never intervenes directly in the government of American society, should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
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
Image
Democracy does not create strong ties between people. But it does make living together easier.
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
What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
The foremost or indeed sole condition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality or to get men to believe you love it. Thus, the science of despotism, which was once so complex, has been simplified and reduced, as it were, to a single principle.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
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
Image
In politics a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
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
Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
In democracies, nothing is more great or more brilliant than commerce: it attracts the attention of the public, and fills the imagination of the multitude all energetic passions are directed towards it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
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
Image
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