“ The powers of society are more or less fugitive, like the years which we spend upon the earth; they succeed each other with rapidity, like the fleeting cares of life; and no government has ever yet been founded upon an invariable disposition of the human heart, or upon an imperishable interest. ”
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835). copy citation
| Author | Alexis de Tocqueville |
|---|---|
| Source | Democracy in America |
| Topic | society government |
| Date | 1835 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Henry Reeve |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/815/815-h/815-h.htm |
Context
“The political powers which seem to be most firmly established have frequently no better guarantee for their duration than the opinions of a generation, the interests of the time, or the life of an individual. A law may modify the social condition which seems to be most fixed and determinate; and with the social condition everything else must change. The powers of society are more or less fugitive, like the years which we spend upon the earth; they succeed each other with rapidity, like the fleeting cares of life; and no government has ever yet been founded upon an invariable disposition of the human heart, or upon an imperishable interest.
As long as a religion is sustained by those feelings, propensities, and passions which are found to occur under the same forms, at all the different periods of history, it may defy the efforts of time;”
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