A Quote by Alexis de Tocqueville

The First thing that strikes a traveler in the United States is the innumerable multitude of those who seek to emerge from their original condition; and the second is the rarity of lofty ambition to be observed in the midst of the universally ambitious stir of society. No Americans are devoid of a yearning desire to rise, but hardly any appear to entertain hopes of great magnitude or to pursue very lofty aims. All are constantly seeking to acquire property, power, and reputation.

Alexis de Tocqueville

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Acquire Aims Ambition Ambitious Any Appear Condition Constantly Desire Devoid Emerge Entertain First First Thing Great Hardly Hopes Lofty Magnitude Midst Multitude Observed Original Power Property Pursue Rarity Reputation Rise Second Seek Seeking Society States Stir Strikes The First Thing Thing Those Traveler United United States Universally Very Yearning

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Alexis de Tocqueville
French - Historian
July 29, 1805 - April 16, 1859

From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty ambition.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

When you're trying to accomplish lofty goals, and when you're attacking something of great magnitude, you have to have help.

Zach Johnson

One magnitude is said to be the limit of another magnitude when the second may approach the first within any given magnitude, however small, though the second may never exceed the magnitude it approaches.

Jean le Rond d'Alembert

The Idea of Anti-imperialism is... to be considered on several grounds. First, it is traditionally pervasive in the United States, though given its most extreme form in anti-Western academe. Second, it is used as a negative label for any effort by the United States, or the West, to encourage liberties, to block fanaticisms, and to make aid dependent on positive economic policies. Those concerned with the future development of their countries, and of the world, cannot afford to let obsolete resentments distort their aims.

Robert Conquest

In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property.

Samuel Adams

In every society in human history, including the United States, those in power seek to imbue themselves with the attributes of religion and patriotism as a way of getting greater support for their policy and insulating themselves from any criticism.

George J. Mitchell

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve regardless of how many times you may have failed in the past or how lofty your aims and hopes may be.

Napoleon Hill

Mountains appear more lofty the nearer they are approached, but great men resemble them not in this particular.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.

Saint Augustine

But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day.

Thornton Wilder

The Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci used to say that for her, an interview was like a war. I get the sense that we've forgotten that here in the United States. You turn on the TV, and you see very bland interviews. Journalists in the United States are very cozy with power, very close to those in power.

Jorge Ramos

What you admire in others will develop in yourself. Therefore, to love the ordinary in any one is to become ordinary, while to love the noble and the lofty in all minds is to grow into the likeness of that which is noble and lofty.

Christian D. Larson

For public opinion does not admit that lofty rapturous laughter is worthy to stand beside lofty lyrical emotion and that there isall the difference in the world between it and the antics of a clown at a fair.

Nikolai Gogol

I was a 'bathroom actor' and people used to laugh at me, listening to my lofty aims and ambitions.

Ashish Vidyarthi

Living in New York City, I am reminded by the Statue of Liberty that the United States of America has always welcomed those yearning to breathe free and seek a better life.

Charles B. Rangel

A Quote by Alexis de Tocqueville

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