Democracy in America #1

I've been slowly working my way through Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. It's written in the old fashioned style, with long, complex and intelligent sentences. It's the writing that sounds so wonderful in short doses when you read some letter of Jefferson or Lincoln. But, in large doses, it's wearying. I can only manage maybe 10 pages a day. Full text is available here.

Still, it's well worth it. Much of what he wrote nearly 200 years ago still holds true. Here's some of my favorites so far.

Book I Chapter 8

A proposition must be plain, to be adopted by the understanding of a people. A false notion which is clear and precise will always have more power in the world than a true principle which is obscure or involved. Thus it happens that parties, which are like small communities in the heart of the nation, invariably adopt some principle or name as a symbol, which very inadequately represents the end they have in view and the means that they employ, but without which they could neither act nor exist. The governments that are founded upon a single principle or a single feeling which is easily defined are perhaps not the best, but they are unquestionably the strongest and the most durable in the world.

Book I Chapter 13, a quote from Hamilton

It may perhaps be said, that the power of preventing bad laws includes that of preventing good ones.

Book I Chapter 13, complaining about the low quality of public officials (sound familiar?)

The pursuit of wealth generally diverts men of great talents and strong passions from the pursuit of power; and it frequently happens that a man does not undertake to direct the fortunes of the state until he has shown himself incompetent to conduct his own. The vast number of very ordinary men who occupy public stations is quite as attributable to these causes as to the bad choice of democracy.

Book I Chapter 14

Nothing is more embarrassing in the ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans.

Book I Chapter 17

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot.