Rick > Rick's Quotes

“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“The nation, taken as a whole, will be less brilliant, less glorious, and perhaps less strong; but the majority of the citizens will enjoy a greater degree of prosperity, and the people will remain quiet, not because it despairs of amelioration, but because it is conscious of the advantages of its condition.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“is natural that they should hasten to invoke the assistance of religion, for they must know that liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith; but they have seen religion in the ranks of their adversaries, and they inquire no further; some of them attack it openly, and the remainder are afraid to defend it.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“Although the vast country which we have been describing was inhabited by many indigenous tribes, it may justly be said at the time of its discovery by Europeans to have formed one great desert. The Indians occupied without possessing it.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“The happy and the powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“In the laws of Connecticut, as well as in all those of New England, we find the germ and gradual development of that township independence which is the life and mainspring of American liberty at the present day.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“The American revolution broke out, and the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, which had been nurtured in the townships and municipalities, took possession of the State: every class was enlisted in its cause; battles were fought, and victories obtained for it, until it became the law of laws.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“There is no more invariable rule in the history of society: the further electoral rights are extended, the greater is the need of extending them; for after each concession the strength of the democracy increases, and its demands increase with its strength.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“The revolution of the United States was the result of a mature and dignified taste for freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined craving for independence.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“It was never assumed in the United States that the citizen of a free country has a right to do whatever he pleases; on the contrary, social obligations were there imposed upon him more various than anywhere else.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“The whole military power of the State is at the disposal of the Governor. He is the commander of the militia, and head of the armed force.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“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.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“Suppose, for instance, that the President of the United States has committed the crime of high treason; the House of Representatives impeaches him, and the Senate degrades him; he must then be tried by a jury, which alone can deprive him of his liberty or his life.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“A government which should have no other means of exacting obedience than open war must be very near its ruin, for one of two alternatives would then probably occur:”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“Next to hating their enemies, men are most inclined to flatter them.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“When the question is reduced to the simple expression of the struggle between poverty and wealth, the tendency of each side of the dispute becomes perfectly evident without further controversy.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“The most natural privilege of man, next to the right of acting for himself, is that of combining his exertions with those of his fellow-creatures, and of acting in common with them.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“for a taste for variety is one of the characteristic passions of democracy.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“A certain degree of power must be granted to public officers, for they would be of no use without it. But the ostensible semblance of authority is by no means indispensable to the conduct of affairs, and it is needlessly offensive to the susceptibility of the public.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“The States in which the citizens have enjoyed their rights longest are those in which they make the best use of them.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“the advantage of democracy is not, as has been sometimes asserted, that it protects the interests of the whole community, but simply that it protects those of the majority.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“Amongst civilized nations revolts are rarely excited, except by such persons as have nothing to lose by them;”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“The Indians had only the two alternatives of war or civilization; in other words, they must either have destroyed the Europeans or become their equals.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“There is a natural prejudice which prompts men to despise whomsoever has been their inferior long after he is become their equal;”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“Thus the negro transmits the eternal mark of his ignominy to all his descendants; and although the law may abolish slavery, God alone can obliterate the traces of its existence.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“December, 1865, of the celebrated 13th article or amendment of the Constitution, which declared that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude—except as a punishment for crime—shall exist within the United States.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“Nations, as well as men, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“The province of Texas is still part of the Mexican dominions, but it will soon contain no Mexicans; the same thing has occurred whenever the Anglo-Americans have come into contact with populations of a different origin.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and weakness.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“To mimic virtue is of every age; but the hypocrisy of luxury belongs more particularly to the ages of democracy.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America