Alexis De Tocqueville Democracy In America Quotes & Sayings

When you act like a nice guy, everyone examines your motives with a microscope. When you act like a conscienceless louse, they generally take you at face value. — Donald Hamilton

And I am in love with light. Lock me in the sunshine. — Nikki Gemmell

Similarly, Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French political philosopher and sociologist, in his classic Democracy in America, written after a lengthy visit in the 1830s, saw equality, not majority rule, as the outstanding characteristic of America. "In America," he wrote, the aristocratic element has always been feeble from its birth; and if at the present day it is not actually destroyed, it is at any rate so completely disabled, that we can scarcely assign to it any degree of influence on the course of affairs. The — Milton Friedman

Those who do not succeed do not believe in their ability to exercise the potential power to forge beyond perceptions of limitations. — T.F. Hodge

Devlin was as sleek and muscular as the black-and-gold tiger she had seen on exhibition at the park menagerie. Divested of his clothes, he seemed even larger, his broad shoulders and long torso looming before her. The texture of his flesh was heavy and tough, covered with skin that seemed hard but silken at the same time. His midriff was scored with rows of muscle. She had seen statues and illustrations of the male body, but nothing had ever conveyed this sense of warm, living strength, this potent virility. — Lisa Kleypas

Better use has been made of association and this powerful instrument of action has been applied for more varied aims in America than anywhere else in the world. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Once you are absolutely thoughtlessly aware, you are one with the Divine, so much so that the Divine takes over every activity, every moment of your life and looks after you and you feel completely secured, one with the Divine and enjoy the blessings of the Divine. — Nirmala Srivastava

Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry interests, in one word, so anti-poetic, as the life of a man in the United States. — Alexis De Tocqueville

But a people, having taken its rise in civilization and democracy, which should gradually establish an inequality of conditions, until it arrived at inviolable privileges and exclusive castes, would be a novelty in the world; and nothing intimates that America is likely to furnish so singular an example. — Alexis De Tocqueville

San Francisco is the place where most people were last seen — Ambrose Bierce

Alexis de Tocqueville took note of this fact in his Democracy in America, published in 1835: "In America," he wrote, "parties do not write books to combat each other's opinions, but pamphlets, which are circulated for a day with incredible rapidity and then expire."25 And he referred to both newspapers and pamphlets when he observed, "the invention of firearms equalized the vassal and the noble on the field of battle; the art of printing opened the same resources to the minds of all classes; the post brought knowledge alike to the door of the cottage and to the gate of the palace." 26 — Neil Postman

Wealth is the byproduct of thoughts. To be wealthy, think of wealth. — Debasish Mridha

From Democracy in America (1835)
It is odd to watch with what feverish ardor the Americans pursue prosperity and how they are ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they may not have chosen the shortest route to get it. Americans cleave to the things of this world as if assured that they will never die, and yet are in such a rush to snatch any that come within their reach, as if expecting to stop living before they have relished them. They clutch everything but hold nothing fast, and so lose their grip as they hurry after some new delight. — Alexis De Tocqueville

I don't have anything against this Jesus guy, but has he written, directed, and starred in his own movie? — Zach Braff

He was endowed with the extraordinary powers of endurance characteristic of madmen and simpletons. — Vasily Grossman

We're dumber and less cognitively nimble if we're not around other people - and, now, other machines. — Clive Thompson

America posed a deeply interesting question to any Frenchmen with a political curiosity to ask it. How had Americans launched a revolution that aimed at establishing a free, stable, and constitutional government and made a success of it, while the French had in forty-one years lurched from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, to the declaration of the republic, to mob rule, the Terror, the mass murder, and thence to a conservative republic, Napoleonic autocracy, the Bourbon restoration, further revolution, and the installation of an Orleanist constitutional monarchy? — Alan Ryan

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. — Kurt Vonnegut

It is almost impossible to grow a company of any size and worth unless you expand beyond yourself — Rhonda Abrams

She shook her head in perplexity. "I'll never know where you got the idea that you were destined for greatness." She dropped the rest of the rabbit in the pot and begun to clean the underside of its skin. She would use the fur. "You certainly didn't inherit it from your forebears. — Ken Follett

Otter. Otter. Otter," I mutter. "Yes, Bear?" he says beautifully. "Don't lead cows to slaughter," I say. He arches an eyebrow. "Come again?" I take a deep breath. "I ... love you and I know I should've told ya soon-a." His eyes widen slightly. "Wait, what? You ... me?" I shake my head. "But you didn't buy the dolphin-safe tuna." "Bear, what the hell? Did you just ... rhyme? — T.J. Klune

During my stay in the United States, I witnessed the spontaneous formation of committees in a country for the pursuit and prosecution of a man who had committed a great crime. In Europe, a criminal is an unhappy man who is struggling for his life against the agents of power, whilst the people are merely a spectator of the conflict: in America, he is looked upon as an enemy of the human race, and the whole of mankind is against him. — Alexis De Tocqueville

She was eager to stoop to his level. — Anne Taintor

Alexis de Tocqueville warned that as the economy and government of America got bigger, citizens could become smaller: less practiced in the forms of everyday power, more dependent on vast distant social machines, more isolated and atomized--and therefore more susceptible to despotism.

He warned that if the "habits of the heart" fed by civic clubs and active self-government evaporated, citizens would regress to pure egoism. They would stop thinking about things greater than their immediate circle. Public life would disappear. And that would only accelerate their own disempowerment.

This is painfully close to a description of the United States since Trump and Europe since Brexit. And the only way to reverse this vicious cycle of retreat and atrophy is to reverse it: to find a sense of purpose that is greater than the self, and to exercise power with others and for others in democratic life. — Eric Liu

In running over the pages of our history for seven hundred years, we shall scarcely find a single great event which has not promoted equality of condition. The Crusades and the English wars decimated the nobles and divided their possessions: the municipal corporations introduced democratic liberty into the bosom of feudal monarchy; the invention of fire-arms equalized the vassal and the noble on the field of battle; the art of printing opened the same resources to the minds of all classes; the post-office brought knowledge alike to the door of the cottage and to the gate of the palace; and Protestantism proclaimed that all men are alike able to find the road to heaven. The discovery of America opened a thousand new paths to fortune, and led obscure adventurers to wealth and power. — Alexis De Tocqueville

What's at risk [in 100 years] if we do not take action, truly is the survival of civilization as we know it ... Literally that is the case. We have seen global warming so far of just a little bit less than one degree Celsius and look at what's happened. Superstorm Sandy. Boulder Colorado. All these fires. Hurricane Irene one year before. — Al Gore