“The American lives in a land of wonders, in which everything seems to be in constant flux, and every change seems to mark an advance. Hence the idea of the new is coupled in his mind with the idea of the better. Nowhere does he perceive the limits that nature may have imposed on man’s efforts. In his eyes, that which does not exist is that which has not yet been attempted.”
―
Alexis de Tocqueville,
Democracy in America: A New Translation
“Nowhere do citizens seem more insignificant than in a democratic nation.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“All men being equally weak, each would feel equally in need of his fellow man’s support and, knowing that cooperation was the condition of that support, would readily see that his private interest was subsumed in the general interest.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“Parties are an evil inherent in free governments,” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“Although the vast country just described was inhabited by numerous tribes of native peoples, one can justly say that at the time of its discovery it was still no more than a wilderness. The Indians occupied it but did not possess it. It is through agriculture that man takes possession of the soil, and the first inhabitants of North America lived by hunting. Their implacable prejudices, their unbridled passions, their vices, and, perhaps most of all, their savage virtues marked them out for inevitable destruction. The ruin of these tribes began the day that Europeans landed on their shores. It has continued ever since and is even now being carried through to completion. Providence placed these people among the riches of the New World but made their enjoyment brief. They were there, in a sense, only in anticipation. These coasts, so well suited to trade and industry, these rivers so deep, this inexhaustible Mississippi valley, this whole continent, in fact, seemed but an empty cradle awaiting the birth of a great nation. Here civilized men would attempt to build society on new foundations. Applying for the first time theories either previously unknown or deemed inapplicable, they would stage for the world a spectacle for which nothing in the history of the past had prepared it.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“The gradual development of the equality of conditions is therefore a providential fact. It has the essential characteristics of one: it is universal, durable, and daily proves itself to be beyond the reach of man’s powers. Not a single event, not a single individual, fails to contribute to its development.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“The nation’s most powerful, intelligent, and morally responsible classes have never tried to take hold of the movement in order to guide it. Democracy has therefore been abandoned to its savage instincts.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“One of the most familiar weaknesses of the human mind is the wish to reconcile contrary principles and buy peace at the expense of logic.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“Although man resembles the animals in several respects, one feature is peculiar to him alone: he perfects himself and they do not.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“Nowhere do citizens seem more insignificant than in a democratic nation.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“All men being equally weak, each would feel equally in need of his fellow man’s support and, knowing that cooperation was the condition of that support, would readily see that his private interest was subsumed in the general interest.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“Parties are an evil inherent in free governments,” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“Although the vast country just described was inhabited by numerous tribes of native peoples, one can justly say that at the time of its discovery it was still no more than a wilderness. The Indians occupied it but did not possess it. It is through agriculture that man takes possession of the soil, and the first inhabitants of North America lived by hunting. Their implacable prejudices, their unbridled passions, their vices, and, perhaps most of all, their savage virtues marked them out for inevitable destruction. The ruin of these tribes began the day that Europeans landed on their shores. It has continued ever since and is even now being carried through to completion. Providence placed these people among the riches of the New World but made their enjoyment brief. They were there, in a sense, only in anticipation. These coasts, so well suited to trade and industry, these rivers so deep, this inexhaustible Mississippi valley, this whole continent, in fact, seemed but an empty cradle awaiting the birth of a great nation. Here civilized men would attempt to build society on new foundations. Applying for the first time theories either previously unknown or deemed inapplicable, they would stage for the world a spectacle for which nothing in the history of the past had prepared it.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“The gradual development of the equality of conditions is therefore a providential fact. It has the essential characteristics of one: it is universal, durable, and daily proves itself to be beyond the reach of man’s powers. Not a single event, not a single individual, fails to contribute to its development.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“The nation’s most powerful, intelligent, and morally responsible classes have never tried to take hold of the movement in order to guide it. Democracy has therefore been abandoned to its savage instincts.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“One of the most familiar weaknesses of the human mind is the wish to reconcile contrary principles and buy peace at the expense of logic.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
“Although man resembles the animals in several respects, one feature is peculiar to him alone: he perfects himself and they do not.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: A New Translation
