A Quote by Alexis de Tocqueville

Among the laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it seems to me, than all the others. If men are to remain civilized or to become civilized, the art of association must develop and improve among them at the same speed as equality of conditions spreads.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Quote Topics

Among Art Association Become Civilized Clearer Conditions Controlling Develop Equality Human Improve Laws Me Men More Must Others Precise Remain Same Seems Societies Speed Than Them

Quote Author

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

If men are to remain civilized or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.

Alexis de Tocqueville

The laws of Nature take precedence of all human laws. The purpose of all human laws is one - to defeat the laws of Nature. This is the case among all the nations, both civilized and savage. It is a grotesquerie, but when the human race is not grotesque it is because it is asleep and losing its opportunity.

Mark Twain

It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt.

Robert Green Ingersoll

Secret Societies have existed among all peoples, savage and civilized, since the beginning of recorded history... It is beyond question that the secret societies of all ages have exercised a considerable degree of political influence.

Manly Hall

Where will you find any code of laws among civilized men in which the commands and prohibitions are not founded on Christian principles? I need not specify the prohibition of murder, robbery, theft, trespass.

Noah Webster

Civilized people can talk about anything. For them no subject is taboo.... In civilized societies there will be no intellectual bogeys at sight of which great grownup babies are expected to hide their eyes.

Clive Bell

...men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.

George Orwell

The broadest pattern of history - namely, the differences between human societies on different continents - seems to me to be attributable to differences among continental environments, and not to biological differences among peoples themselves.

Jared Diamond

If one benefits tangibly from the exploitation of others who are weak, is one morally implicated in their predicament? Or are basic rights of human existence confined to the civilized societies that are wealthy enough to afford them? Our values are defined by what we will tolerate when it is done to others.

William Greider

There is nothing in either savage or civilized history that is more utterly complete, more remorselessly sweeping than the Father of Mercy´s campaign among the Midianites. The official report deals only in masses, all the virgins, all the men, all the babies. all ´creatures that breathe,´ all houses. all cities. It gives you just one vast picture ...as far as the eye can reach, of charred ruins and storm-swept desolation... Would you expect this same conscienceless God, this moral bankrupt, to become a teacher of morals, of gentleness, of meekness, of righteousness, of purity?

Mark Twain

Its likely that a general pattern of behavior among threatened human societies is to become more blindered, rather than more focused on the crisis, as they fall.

Ed Ayres

It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone - that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous. . . . The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.

H. L. Mencken

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Thomas Jefferson

The more equality women have, the fairer, more civilized and tolerant society will be. Sexual equality is a lot more effective against terrorism than military strength.