It is odd to watch with what feverish ardour Americans pursue prosperity, ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they might not have chosen the shortest route to get it. They cleave to the things of this world as if assured they will never die, and yet rush to snatch any that comes within their reach, as if they expected to stop living before relishing them. Death steps in, in the end, and stops them, before they have grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes them.
More Author Quotes
- Despotism can do without faith but freedom cannot. β¨ Alexis de Tocqueville (2012). Democracy in America, p.282, University of Chicago Press
- We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
- The civil jury is the most effective form of sovereignty of the people. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During the reigns of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and Elizabeth I (1158-1603), the civil j β¦ βΆ
- I shall not fear to say that the doctrine of self-interest rightly understood seems to me of all the philosophic theories the most appropriate to the needs of men in our time, and that I see in it th β¦ βΆ
- Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand. β¨ Alexis de Tocqueville (1896). Recollections, p.93, Library of Alexandria
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