a sort of natural goodness mixes itself with every thing in Germany, even with aristocratical pride; and the differences of rank are reduced to some court privileges...
That species of impartiality, the very excess of justice, which characterizes the Germans, renders them much more susceptible of being inflamed with abstract sentiments, than of the real interests of life...
The love of liberty is not at all developed among the Germans; they have not learned, either by enjoyment or by privation, the value which may be attached to it.
The Germans, with some few exceptions, are hardly capable of succeeding in any thing which requires address and dexterity; every thing worries and embarrasses them...
... They join the greatest boldness of thought to the most obedient character.
The French, on the contrary consider actions with all the freedom of art, and ideas with all the bondage of custom.
the energy of action develops itself only in those free and powerful countries where patriotic sentiments are to the soul like blood to the veins
The German women have a charm exclusively their own, a touching voice, fair hair, a dazzling complexion; they are modest, but less timid than Englishwomen;
That perfect loyalty, which distinguishes the German character, renders love less dangerous for the happiness of women
as the Germans are endowed with more imagination than real passion, the most extravagant events take place with singular tranquillity
...there are among the women of Germany numbers whose sentiments are true and manners simple. Their careful education, and the purity of soul which is natural to them...
Conversation, as a talent, exists in France alone; in all other countries it answers the purposes of politeness, of argument, or of friendly intercourse.
... it may be affirmed, without extravagance, that the French are almost alone in matters of this sort of discourse.
A Frenchman can speak, even without ideas; a German has always more in his head than he is able to express.
..in Germany, an ignorant person never dares profess an opinion on any subject whatever with confidence; for, no opinion being received as incontestable, you can advance none without being previously armed to defend it
the Germans think themselves less bound by duty than affection. What we have said respecting the facility of divorce affords a proof of this; love is, with them, more sacred than marriage.
...goodness and integrity in every class; but a sort of simpering stiffness, which is the reverse at once both of ease and dignity.
it may be affirmed, without extravagance, that the French are almost alone masters of this sort of discourse.
The spirit of the Germans agrees less than that of any other people with this measured frivolity; that spirit has hardly any power over the surfaces of things; it must examine deeply in order to comprehend;
The English, not fearing the ridicule of which the French are masters, have sometimes ventured to pay them in kind;
Nothing is more foreign to this talent than the character and disposition of the German intellect; they require in all things a serious result.
the most inconsiderable titles, which are yet the longest to be pronounced, are there bestowed and repeated twenty times at the same meal...
The French have admitted into it a gayety which renders them amiable, but it is not the less certain, that all that is most sacred in this world has been shaken to its centre by grace, at least by that sort of grace that attaches importance to nothing, and turns all things into ridicule.
The distinction of ranks was not marked in a positive manner, and there was constant room for ambition in the undefined space which was open to all by turns to conquer or lose.
In France, the spirit of imitation is like a bond of society; and it seems as if everything would fall into confusion if this bond did not make up for the instability of institutions.
... In this talent of conversation there is a sort of address which always takes away something from the inflexibility of morality...
The relations of the different classes with one another were also well calculated to develop in France the sagacity, measure, and propriety of the spirit of society.
In Germany, everybody keeps his rank, his place in society as if it were his established post...
[Obama] was aspiring to sit atop a system awash with corporate donations in which congressional seats are openly gerrymandered and 41% of the upper chamber can block almost anything.
In a nation that prides itself on always moving forward, the notion that they are “still dealing with this” feels like an affront to the national character.
The more French standups you see, the more you realise none of them is trivial. All the acts I watched are social commentators.... French standup does seem less flippant and more politicised than its UK equivalent.
French standup does seem less flippant and more politicised than its UK equivalent.
He was closely followed, however, by his admirers, whose boisterous behaviour savoured much more of enthusiasm than deference or politeness.
Probably a stricter discipline may be found necessary, on account of the equality that exists in America
time might, however, account for much of this, although it is well known that brokers and speculators on the American continent engage in the pursuit with the avidity of professed gamblers.
His appearance as he passed along attracted little notice, such vagaries being common in America.
Here, in a retired spot, is the duelling ground,
Cheap newspapers are pushed into the face of the passer-by, at the corner of every principal thoroughfare
One peculiarity, exceedingly annoying to an Englishman, which is observable even in good society in New York and elsewhere in America, is a prying curiosity as to the affairs of those with whom they converse.
As long as the rampant spirit of competition and desire to outvie their fellows, which prevails amongst a large class of Americans, is tacitly, if not openly, encouraged by the governing powers, such a state of things must exist...
however, that the higher grades, doubtless from the same causes that operate in other parts of the world, kept aloof from those beneath them.
that tendency to overreach that has, perhaps, with some justice, been called a disposition in the generality of Americans to defraud.
the preference is given by the mass to a few ordinary airs, calculated to inspire that love of country which every reminiscence of the struggle for independence calls forth.
In my travels on the whole route from New York to Charleston, I discovered a most unjustifiable and impertinent disposition to pry into the business of others.
Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions.
Everyone shuts himself up in his own breast, and affects from that point to judge the world.
Christian sects are infinitely diversified and perpetually modified; but Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it.
The Americans are much more addicted to the use of general ideas than the English, and entertain a much greater relish for them
The Americans are much more addicted to the use of general ideas than the English, and entertain a much greater relish for them:
Amongst the French, on the contrary, the taste for general ideas would seem to have grown to so ardent a passion, that it must be satisfied on every occasion.
Hence arose that philosophy, at once bold and timid, broad and narrow, which has hitherto prevailed in England, and which still obstructs and stagnates in so many minds in that country.
At no time has the American people laid hold on ideas of this kind with the passionate energy of the French people in the eighteenth century, or displayed the same blind confidence in the value and absolute truth of any theory.
I have seen no country in which Christianity is clothed with fewer forms, figures, and observances than in the United States;
hardly anyone in the United States devotes himself to the essentially theoretical and abstract portion of human knowledge.
They then vent their pomposity from one end of a harangue to the other; and to hear them lavish imagery on every occasion, one might fancy that they never spoke of anything with simplicity.
The extreme regularity of habits and the great strictness of manners which are observable in the United States, have as yet opposed additional obstacles to the growth of dramatic art.
The English often perform great things singly; whereas the Americans form associations for the smallest undertakings.
The Americans, on the contrary, are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of interest rightly understood;
there generally is, even in their zeal, something so indescribably tranquil, methodical, and deliberate, that it would seem as if the head, far more than the heart, brought them to the foot of the altar.
Religious insanity is very common in the United States.
A native of the United States clings to this world's goods as if he were certain never to die
He who has set his heart exclusively upon the pursuit of worldly welfare is always in a hurry, for he has but a limited time at his disposal to reach it, to grasp it, and to enjoy it.
their chief business is to secure for themselves a government which will allow them to acquire the things they covet, and which will not debar them from the peaceful enjoyment of those possessions which they have acquired.
In the United States, on the seventh day of every week, the trading and working life of the nation seems suspended;
In the United States professions are more or less laborious, more or less profitable; but they are never either high or low: every honest calling is honorable.
In no country is criminal justice administered with more mildness than in the United States.
As aristocratic pride is still extremely great amongst the English, and as the limits of aristocracy are ill-defined, everybody lives in constant dread lest advantage should be taken of his familiarity.
they do not care to display, any more than to conceal, their position in the world
They hardly ever forget an offence, but it is not easy to offend them; and their resentment is as slow to kindle as it is to abate.
despising no one on account of his station, he does not imagine that anyone can despise him for that cause; and until he has clearly perceived an insult, he does not suppose that an affront was intended.
I have often remarked in the United States that it is not easy to make a man understand that his presence may be dispensed with; hints will not always suffice to shake him off.
The Americans, who are always cold and often coarse in their manners, seldom show insensibility; and if they do not proffer services eagerly, yet they do not refuse to render them.
An American who had travelled for a long time in Europe once said to me, "The English treat their servants with a stiffness and imperiousness of manner which surprise us;
the French sometimes treat their attendants with a degree of familiarity or of politeness which we cannot conceive.
The Gusii mothers were appalled. Why does that mother ignore the cries of her unhappy baby during a simple diaper change? And how come that grandmother does nothing to soothe the screaming baby in her lap?
In the United States, for example, where individualism is valued, parents do not hold their babies as much as in other cultures, and they place them in rooms of their own to sleep. Pediatricians and parents alike often say this fosters independence and self-reliance.
in our subsequent long and varied journey, we always met with the same obliging disposition on the part of the public officers.
At dinner, which was at three o’clock, we were again baffled by the same cold and civil but very unsociable formality.
an excessive, and universal sensitiveness as to the opinions entertained of them by the English
The Chief Justice and two judges were on the bench; but I must say, that the absence of the wigs and gowns... made me distrust the wisdom with which the Americans had stripped away so much of what had been held sacred so long
Lake George exceeded my expectations as far as it exceeds the power of the Americans to overpraise it, which is no small compliment.
I was also curious to see how the Americans, a people so eternally occupied and wound up to business, would manage to let themselves down into a state of professed idleness.
nothing could be more kind, or hospitable, or more obliging in all respects, than the Americans were to us, from end to end of the country.
The revision of the laws was the subject under discussion, and I had ample means of judging of that passion for legislating, which I had been told frequently before was only second in the breast of an American to the passion of electioneering.
The Americans, as it appears to me, are infinitely more occupied about bringing in a given candidate, than they are about the advancement of those measures of which he is conceived to be the supporter.
The candidates seldom, if ever, that I could see, even professed to take their chief ground as the fittest men for the vacant office —this was often hardly thought of— as they stood forward simply as Adams men or Jackson men.
New England ... has served as a hive from whence swarms of emigrants, as robust in body as in mind, have issued forth, and carried with them to the woods the same spirit of freedom, of enterprise, and of active labour, which has belonged to them, I believe, ever since their first settlement.
... I do not think the circumstances in America are more favourable for the attainment of intellectual excellence than they are in England, but tend rather, on the contrary, to distract and waste the powers of the human mind...
The Americans, who are a very grave people, keep few holidays; and whether it be cause or effect, I do not know, but they appear wofully ignorant of the difficult art of being gracefully idle
the peculiar character of the American people, whose youth and elasticity carry them through these and many other temporary obstructions. ... they are a people of shifts and expedients, always accommodating themselves to circumstances ...
there has sprung up amongst them a habit of shrewdness, which is generally dignified by the name of intelligence, in close connexion with the universal habit of bargaining, which soon makes them adepts in every business they undertake.
With them religion, like every thing in the country, is left to take its own course; we, on the other hand, have chosen to collect together the experience which has resulted from long ages of trial and discussion, and to fix this condensed knowledge in one solid fabric.
I have reason, indeed, to believe, from what I saw and heard, that the American discipline, especially as applied to officers, is more stern than in the British navy
s, men servants, cooks, or any description of female attendants, are rarely to be found; and, if found, no money will bribe them to stay long in a house, or to behave respectfully when there.
nothing struck them so much, they assured me, as the different degree of power which the English ladies appeared to hold over society, compared to that exercised by those of their own country.
No pleasure is ever thought worth enjoying except in female company.
I allude now more particularly to classical studies, which are, in fact, so much neglected from end to end of America, that they may be said to have little or no existence
I have rarely met a more good-natured, or perhaps I should say, a more good-tempered people