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Alexis De Tocqueville on democracy: "People liberated from old hierarchies want equality in freedom and, if they cannot get it, they still want it in slavery”
“Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, “Why the Americans Are Often So Restless in the Midst of their Prosperity” (1835)
“When all prerogatives of birth and fortune have been abolished, when every profession is open to everyone …an ambitious man may think it is easy to launch himself on a great career and feel that he has been called to no co
... See moreGeneral prosperity is favorable to the stability of all governments, but more particularly of a democratic constitution, which depends upon the dispositions of the majority, and more particularly of that portion of the community which is most exposed to feel the pressure of want.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
Belonging neither to the class which regarded the social revolution as an innovation to be resisted, nor to that which considered political equality the universal panacea for the evils of humanity, he resolved by personal observation of the results of democracy in the New World to ascertain its natural consequences, and to learn what the nations of
... See moreAlexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
In a community in which lawyers are allowed to occupy, without opposition, that high station which naturally belongs to them, their general spirit will be eminently conservative and anti-democratic.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
Alexis de Tocqueville
Nathan Schneider • Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life
If the human mind be left to follow its own bent, it will regulate the temporal and spiritual institutions of society upon one uniform principle; and man will endeavor, if I may use the expression, to harmonize the state in which he lives upon earth with the state which he believes to await him in heaven.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
The government of democracy is favorable to the political power of lawyers; for when the wealthy, the noble, and the prince are excluded from the government, they are sure to occupy the highest stations, in their own right, as it were, since they are the only men of information and sagacity, beyond the sphere of the people, who can be the object of
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