Jared S’s Reviews > Alexis de Tocqueville > Status Update

"...what we have called the republic has been only an unclassifiable monster....What does it matter to me whether tyranny wears a royal mantle or a tribune's toga if I feel its hand weighing on me? When Danton strangled unhappy prisoners whose sole crime was not to think as he did, was that liberty?...we in France have seen anarchy and despotism under all their forms but nothing which resembles a republic"Toqueville

"This lake without a single sail upon it, its shore as yet showing no trace of human presence, the eternal forest which surrounds it, all that, I assure you, is not just great in poetry. It is the most extraordinary sight I have ever seen... These lands which are, as yet, nothing but one immense wood, will become one of the richest and more powerful countries in the world. I can so without being the least a prophet."

"I am aware, gentleman, that many people still insist on seeing nothing in human affairs but the results of pre-existing necessity, which sweeps men along unknowingly to an end of which they are ignorant. But in my opinion, if things act upon men, men have often more greatly influenced things." -Guizot

"Five past twelve. The elder line of the House of Bourbon has ceased to reign." - Talleyrand