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Lawyers belong to the people by birth and interest, and to the aristocracy by habit and taste they may be looked upon as the connecting link of the two great classes of society.

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
Class
Links
Interest
Classes
Society
Belong
Upon
Lawyer
Two
Looked
Aristocracy
May
Birth
Link
Great
Habit
Lawyers
People
Taste
Connecting

More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

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In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.
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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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Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years.
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If men are to remain civilized or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.
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He who seeks freedom for anything but freedom's self is made to be a slave.
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A long war almost always places nations in this sad alternative: that their defeat delivers them to destruction and their triumph to despotism.
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However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.
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So many of my thoughts and feelings are shared by the English that England has turned into a second native land of the mind for me.
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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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Military discipline is merely a perfection of social servitude.
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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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No stigma attaches to the love of money in America, and provided it does not exceed the bounds imposed by public order, it is held in honor. The American will describe as noble and estimable ambition that our medieval ancestors would have called base cupidity.
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Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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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The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.
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All around you everything is on the move.
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As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?
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The world belongs to those with the most energy.
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Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
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Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
Alexis de Tocqueville