Quotes About Society

The poor man retains the prejudices of his forefathers without their faith, and their ignorance without their virtues; he has adopted the doctrine of self-interest as the rule of his actions, without understanding the science which controls it, and his egotism is no less blind than his devotedness was formerly.

The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated.

A long war almost always places nations in the wretched alternative of being abandoned to ruin by defeat or to despotism by success.

I think that in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States.

No sooner does a government attempt to go beyond its political sphere and to enter upon this new track, than it exercises, even unintentionally, an insupportable tyranny; for a government can only dictate strict rules, the opinions which it favors are rigidly enforced, and it is never easy to discriminate between its advice and its commands.

In no country has such constant care been taken as in America to trace two clearly distinct lines of action for the two sexes...

In no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States.

Nowhere do citizens seem more insignificant than in a democratic nation.

Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of the greatest possible number; for they emanate from the majority of the citizens, who are subject to error, but who cannot have an interest opposed to their own advantage. The laws of an aristocracy tend, on the contrary, to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the minority, because an aristocracy, by its very nature, constitutes a minority.

I readily discovered the prodigious influence that this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society; it gives a peculiar direction to public opinion and a peculiar tenor to the laws; it imparts new maxims to the governing authorities and peculiar habits to the governed.

If a democratic state of society and democratic institutions do not stop the career of the human mind, they incontestably guide it in one direction in preference to another. Their effects, thus circumscribed, are still exceedingly great; and I trust I may be pardoned if I pause for a moment to survey them. We had occasion, in speaking of the philosophical method of the American people, to make several remarks which must here be turned to account.

Democratic nations often hate those in whose hands the central power is vested; but they love that power itself.

Democratic nations often hate those in whose hands the central power is vested; but they always love that power itself.

An individual so different from all the others, so independent, so favored, destroys or weakens the rule of law.

Every year, therefore, the inequality of taxation separated classes and isolated individuals more deeply than ever before. From the moment when taxation had as its purpose, not to strike those most capable of paying, but those least capable of defending themselves against it, the monstrous consequence of sparing the rich and burdening the poor was inevitable.

Dans l'un et l'autre de ces pays, on arrive par des causes différentes à ce résultat, que c'est la partie la plus généreuse, la plus active, la plus industrieuse de la nation, qui consacre ses secours à fournir de quoi vivre à ceux qui ne font rien ou font un mauvais usage de leur travail.

according to the economists, the function of the state was not merely one of ruling the nation, but also that of recasting it in a given mold, of shaping the mentality of the population as a whole in accordance with a predetermined model and instilling the ideas and sentiments they thought desirable into the minds of all.

I soon perceived that the influence of this fact

Plus une société est riche, industrieuse, prospère, plus les jouissances du plus grand nombre deviennent variées et permanentes; plus elles sont variées et permanentes, plus elles s'assimilent par l'usage et l'exemple à de véritables besoins. L'homme civilisé est donc infiniment plus exposé aux vicissitudes de la destinée que l'homme sauvage.

In order that society should exist, and a fortiori, that a society should prosper, it is required that all the minds of the citizens should be rallied and held together by certain predominant ideas...

At periods of equality men have no faith in one another, by reason of their common resemblance; but this very resemblance gives them almost unbounded confidence in the judgment of the public; for it would not seem probable, as they are all endowed with equal means of judging, but that the greater truth should go with the greater number.

In no country in the world does the law hold so absolute a language as in America, and in no country is the right of applying it vested in so many hands.

The old nobility was the most irreligious class of society before 1789, and the most pious after 1793 ...

It appears to me beyond doubt that sooner or later we shall arrive, like the Americans, at an almost complete equality of conditions.