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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.
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
Small
Democratic
Employ
Politics
Cost
Removed
Littles
Level
Liberalism
Little
Industry
Elsewhere
Wells
Wealth
Carried
Well
Levels
Branches
Country
Economy
Productive
Men
Education
Countries
More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville
The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.
Alexis de Tocqueville
There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.
Alexis de Tocqueville
He [Napoleon] was as great as a man can be without morality.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint imposed upon her by the laws of man.
Alexis de Tocqueville
I am unaware of his plans but I shall never stop believing in them because I cannot fathom them and I prefer to mistrust my own intellectual capacities than his justice.
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A man's admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The position of the Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.
Alexis de Tocqueville
I cannot believe that a republic could subsist if the influence of the lawyers in public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the people.
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You need not value it yourself if you do not wish to but you ought to allow it to us who do value it.
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Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.
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What chiefly diverts the men of democracies from lofty ambition is not the scantiness of their fortunes, but the vehemence of the exertions they daily make to improve them.
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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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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 electors see their representative not only as a legislator for the state but also as the natural protector of local interests in the legislature indeed, they almost seem to think that he has a power of attorney to represent each constituent, and they trust him to be as eager in their private interests as in those of the country.
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Rulers who destroy men's freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. ... They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.
Alexis de Tocqueville
[T]he main evil of the present democratic institutions of the united states does not raise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny.
Alexis de Tocqueville
If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
Alexis de Tocqueville