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Quote by Alexis de Tocqueville

“If I were asked ... to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.”

Quote by Alexis de Tocqueville

Author

Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville was a French historian and political theorist renowned for his seminal work 'Democracy in America'. He embarked on a journey to the United States in the 1830s to examine its democratic institutions, and his observations were compiled into a two-volume book that remains a cornerstone in the study of American democracy and political science. more

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“Children should not be coddled in their intellectual training any more than in their physical; and though the studies should be made interesting the interest should arise out of the studies themselves. We have bred a generation that cannot digest anything intellectual but tablets of peptonized food. One sees that in the popular papers with their brevity, still increasing in brevity as far as brevity can increase, and in the capacity for thought of our rulers.”

“The accumulation of facts, even if interesting in themselves, should not constitute the main part of education; these facts, whether they be of classical learning or knick-knacks of history, will be of little use unless the mind has been trained to see them in proper perspective.”

“The test of education, apart from the accomplishments that secure places in an artificial system, should be this: Let the man be thrown naked on an unknown shore, and be forced to win his way amidst a new people. It may then be of little use to play cricket or to mishandle Tschaikowsky on a piano, but good physique, intelligence, and will power make their way infallibly.”

“We are heirs of the ages because throughout the ages mankind has devised and fashioned new things, and step by step added new conquests to our domain in that incessant contest with nature which means life. But we are decadent heirs if we cannot use the instruments that the ages have put into our hands. The acquisition of these, in the largest scope, is education.”