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Generally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex.

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
Power
Nation
Grip
Ideas
Greater
Precise
Even
Clear
Conception
Mind
Nations
Complexes
Always
Though
Complex
World
Simple
Speaking
Idea
False
True
Generally
Conceptions

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The prejudice of the race appears stronger in the States that have abolished slaves than in the States where slavery still exists. White carpenters, white bricklayers, and white painters will not work side by side with the blacks in the North but do it in almost every Southern State.
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No men are less addicted to reverie than the citizens of a democracy.
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An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say 'Gentlemen' to the person with whom he is conversing.
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America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement.
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When an American asks for the cooperation of his fellow citizens, it is seldom refused and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great good will.
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Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.
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Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.
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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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A man's admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.
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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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Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.
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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.
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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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They all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point.
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Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.
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Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and themselves.
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everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure
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No state of society or laws can render men so much alike but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose some differences between them and though different men may sometimes find it their interest to combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their pleasure.
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The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.
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If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States - that is to say, they will owe their origin not to the equality but to the inequality of conditions.
Alexis de Tocqueville