Quote

It is from the midst of this putrid sewer that the greatest river of human industry springs up and carries fertility to the whole world. From this foul drain pure gold flows forth.

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
Humans
Rivers
Springs
Whole
Flow
Foul
World
Spring
Flows
Putrid
Gold
Carries
Sewer
Pure
Carrie
Sewers
Industry
River
Fertility
Greatest
Midst
Drain
Human
Forth
Drains

More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

Image
Better use has been made of association and this powerful instrument of action has been applied for more varied aims in America than anywhere else in the world.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Slavery...dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Useful undertakings which require sustained attention and vigorous precision in order to succeed often end up by being abandoned, for, in America, as elsewhere, the people move forward by sudden impulses and short-lived efforts.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
America is great because she is good.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details, which must be attended to if rules have to be adapted to different men, instead of indiscriminately subjecting all men to the same rule.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Countries, therefore, when lawmaking falls exclusively to the lot of the poor cannot hope for much economy in public expenditure expenses will always be considerable, either because taxes cannot touch those who vote for them or because they are assessed in a way to prevent that.
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
He [Napoleon] was as great as a man can be without morality.
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
All around you everything is on the move.
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
A long war almost always places nations in this sad alternative: that their defeat delivers them to destruction and their triumph to despotism.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
You may be sure that if you succeed in bringing your audience into the presence of something that affects them, they will not care by what road you brought them there and they will never reproach you for having excited their emotions in spite of dramatic rules.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
He who seeks freedom for anything but freedom's self is made to be a slave.
Alexis de Tocqueville