The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind. Alexis de Tocqueville More Quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville More Quotes From Alexis de Tocqueville 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. Alexis de Tocqueville strong heart men Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint imposed upon her by the laws of man. Alexis de Tocqueville constraints law men No men are less addicted to reverie than the citizens of a democracy. Alexis de Tocqueville democracy citizens men Despotism may be able to do without religion, but democracy cannot. Alexis de Tocqueville democracy religious christian 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 democracy numbers ideas We need a new political science for a new world. Alexis de Tocqueville political world needs 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 march goal thinking In the absence of government each man learns to think, to act for himself, without counting on the support of an outside force which, however vigilant one supposes it to be, can never answer all social needs. Man, thus accustomed to seek his well-being only through his own efforts, raises himself in his own opinion as he does in the opinion of others; his soul becomes larger and stronger at the same time. Alexis de Tocqueville support men thinking The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle. Alexis de Tocqueville battle games america A newspaper is an adviser who does not require to be sought, but who comes of his own accord, and talks to you briefly every day of the common wealth, without distracting you from your private affairs. Alexis de Tocqueville wealth doe common After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. Alexis de Tocqueville Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question. Alexis de Tocqueville There are two things which will always be very difficult for a democratic nation: to start a war and to end it. Alexis de Tocqueville [Some people] have a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. I believe that it is easier to establish an absolute and despotic government amongst a people in which the conditions of society are equal, than amongst any other; and I think that, if such a government were once established amongst such a people, it would not only oppress men, but would eventually strip each of them of several of the highest qualities of humanity. Despotism, therefore, appears to me peculiarly to be dreaded in democratic times. Alexis de Tocqueville He was as great as a man can be without morality. Alexis de Tocqueville without great man morality In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it. Alexis de Tocqueville escape words vote government
