Quotes About Tocqueville

I consider anybody a twerp who hasn't read 'Democracy in America' by Alexis de Tocqueville. There can never be a better book than that one on the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government.

Even when abolition should come, Tocqueville predicted, Americans would "have still to destroy three prejudices much more intangible and more tenacious than it: the prejudice of

In America, there are no noblemen or men of letters, and the people distrust the wealthy. Lawyers therefore constitute the superior political class and the most intellectual segment of society.

As I see it, only God can be all-powerful without danger, because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. Thus there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment (p. 290).

Tocqueville saw that the life of constant action and decision which was entailed by the democratic and businesslike character of American life put a premium upon rough and ready habits of mind, quick decision, and the prompt seizure of opportunities - and that all this activity was not propitious for deliberation, elaboration, or precision in thought.

Tocqueville did not believe that the old writers were perfect, but he believed that they could best make us aware of our imperfections, which is what counts.

The liberal judgment of Dreiser and James goes back of politics, goes back to the cultural assumptions that make politics. We are still haunted by a kind of political fear of the intellect which Tocqueville observed in us more than a century ago.

Alexis de Tocqueville, observing that "there was hardly a political question in the United States that did not sooner or later turn into a judicial one."1

On close inspection, we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity of an absolute government.

Now I know of only two methods of establishing equality in the political world; every citizen must be put in possession of his rights, or rights must be granted to no one.

Centralization and socialism are products of the same soil. The one is to the other what the cultivated fruit is to the wild stock.

The will of the nation is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age.

The States in which the citizens have enjoyed their rights longest are those in which they make the best use of them.

The American republics have no standing armies to intimidate a discontented minority; but as no minority has as yet been reduced to declare open war, the necessity of an army has not been felt.

if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent men or bad citizens, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war.

I passionately love liberty, legality, respect for rights, but not democracy. That is what I find in the depth of my soul.

The Le Havre, the ship carrying Tocqueville and Beaumont, arrived in the United States, in Newport, Rhode Island, on May 10, 1831. The following day they took a steamship to New York City.

One must go to America to understand what power material well-being exerts on political actions and even on opinions themselves, which ought to be subject only to reason.

Exceptional physical conditions, private interest, religion, in that it puts a brake on the inordinate taste for material wealth—these are, from the first weeks of the American journey, the three elements that profoundly marked Tocqueville's arguments.

In the present age men are not very inclined to die in defence of their opinions, but they are rarely inclined to change them.

Remember that life is neither pain nor pleasure; it is serious business, to be entered upon with courage and in a spirit of self-sacrifice.

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.

Oh, Tocqueville, you're the man.

But among the great road trips of American history--from Lewis and Clark to Alexis de Tocqueville to Jack Kerouac-- it hardly rates a mention.