Amongst a democratic population, all the intellectual faculties of the workman are directed to these two objects: he strives to invent methods which may enable him not only to work better, but quicker and cheaper; or, if he cannot succeed in that, to diminish the intrinsic qualities of the thing he makes, without rendering it wholly unfit for the use for which it is intended.

When none but the wealthy had watches, they were almost all very good ones: few are now made which are worth much, but everybody has one in his pocket.

Thus the democratic principle not only tends to direct the human mind to the useful arts, but it induces the artisan to produce with greater rapidity a quantity of imperfect commodities, and the consumer to content himself with these commodities.
Not that in democracies the arts are incapable of producing very commendable works, if such be required.

This may occasionally be the case, if customers appear who are ready to pay for time and trouble.
In this rivalry of every kind of industry--in the midst of this immense competition and these countless experiments, some excellent workmen are formed who reach the utmost limits of their craft.

But they have rarely an opportunity of displaying what they can do; they are scrupulously sparing of their powers; they remain in a state of accomplished mediocrity, which condemns itself, and, though it be very well able to shoot beyond the mark before it, aims only at what it hits.