Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors… - Alexis de Tocqueville

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Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.

Alexis de Tocqueville

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About Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (29 July 1805 – 16 April 1859) was a French political thinker and historian, most famous for his work Democracy in America.

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Also Known As

Alternative Names: Tocqueville • Alexis-Charles-Henri Clerel de Tocqueville • Alexis Clérel de Tocqueville • Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville

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Edmund Burke John Adams Woodrow Wilson Thomas Jefferson H. L. Mencken

Additional quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.

The democratic nations that have introduced freedom into their political constitution at the very time when they were augmenting the despotism of their administrative constitution have been led into strange paradoxes. To manage those minor affairs in which good sense is all that is wanted, the people are held to be unequal to the task; but when the government of the country is at stake, the people are invested with immense powers; they are alternately made the play things of their ruler, and his masters, more than kings and less than men. After having exhausted all the different modes of election without finding one to suit their purpose, they are still amazed and still bent on seeking further; as if the evil they notice did not originate in the constitution of the country far more than in that of the electoral body.

The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.

Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporar… - Alexis de Tocqueville

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