Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes on Knowledge
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), whose Democracy in America (1835/1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856) supply nineteenth-century political thought with two of its most rigorous works of historical sociology, developed across both works a distinctive analysis of the epistemic conditions of democratic society. Under the general equality of conditions, Tocqueville argued, the individual loses the inherited authorities to which aristocratic societies appealed and is therefore exposed either to the systematic pressure of majority opinion or to the centralized administrative apparatus that fills the vacuum — a diagnosis of "democratic despotism" that has shaped subsequent liberal political thought.
Quotes
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“When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.”
As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity. -
Attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville:
“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.”
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“Journey to America, notebooks 1831-1832 translated by George Lawrence (1960)”
In the midst of this American society, so well policed, so sententious, so charitable, a cold selfishness and complete insensibility prevails when it is a question of the natives of the country. The Americans of the United States do not let their dogs hunt the Indians as do the Spaniards in Mexico, but at the bottom it is the same pitiless feeling which here, as everywhere else, animates the Europ -
“Second letter on Algeria (1837), Travels in Algeria p. 38”
Men sometimes submit to shame, to tyranny, to conquest, but they never long suffer anarchy. There is no people so barbarous that they escape this general law of humanity -
“Born under another sky, placed in the middle of an always-moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which sweeps along everything that surrounds him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything; he grows accustomed to naught but change, and concludes by viewing it as the natural state of man; he feels a need for it; even more, he loves it: for instability, instead of occurri”
National Character of Americans—first impressions (1831) Oeuvres complètes, vol. VIII , p. 233 . -
“Original text: Les meilleures lois ne peuvent faire marcher une constitution en dépit des mœurs; les mœurs tirent parti des pires lois . C'est là une vérité commune, mais à laquelle mes études me ramènent sans cesse. Elle est placée dans mon esprit comme un point central. Je l'aperçois au bout de toutes mes idées.”
The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.