Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes

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• Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Power, Greatness, Flames

  Misattributed to Tocqueville. "The Tocqueville Fraud" by John Pitney, www.weeklystandard.com. November 12, 1995.

  203 Copy quote

• The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Discovery, America

  208 Copy quote
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  Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Patriotic, Equality, Differences

  "Discours prononcé à l'assemblée constituante le 12 Septembre 1848 sur la question du droit au travail". Oeuvres complètes, Volume IX, p. 546, 1866.

  163 Copy quote

• Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Character, Animal, Government

  152 Copy quote

• It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Lying, Simple, World

  118 Copy quote
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  Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Rights, Order, Support

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1990). “Democracy in America”

  127 Copy quote

• Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.... The subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Ignorance, Equality, Slavery

  74 Copy quote

• The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Lying, Greatness, America

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville. Chapter XIII, 1835.

  29 Copy quote

• Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Pregnancy, Liberty, Ethics

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1847). “Democracy in America”, p.11

  64 Copy quote

• I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Political, Islam

  "The Tocqueville Reader: A Life in Letters and Politics". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville; edited by Olivier Zunz and Alan S. Kahan, p. 229, 2002.

  154 Copy quote

• I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Running, Men, Office

  58 Copy quote

• Any measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Class, Giving, Lazy

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2006). “Memoir on Pauperism: Does Public Charity Produce an Idle And Dependent Class of Society?”, p.26, Cosimo, Inc.

  18 Copy quote

• As for me, I am deeply a democrat; this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can't have it both ways. Socialism is a new form of slavery.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Philosophy, Political, Together

  Notes for a Speech on Socialism, 1848.

  23 Copy quote

• When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Inspirational, Motivational, Past

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book Four, Chapter VIII, 1840.

  30 Copy quote

• Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Religious, Opposites

  Alexis De Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy In America -- Vol. 1”, p.394

  42 Copy quote

• Remember that life is neither pain nor pleasure; it is serious business, to be entered upon with courage and in a spirit of self-sacrifice.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Life, Pain, Sacrifice

  7 Copy quote

• There is in fact a manly and legitimate passion for equality that spurs all men to wish to be strong and esteemed. This passion tends to elevate the lesser to the rank of the greater. But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Freedom, Equality, America

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville. Chapter III, Part I, 1835.

  128 Copy quote

• I am deeply convinced that any permanent, regular administrative system whose aim is to provide for the needs of the poor will breed more miseries than it can cure, will deprave the population that it wants to help and comfort, will dry up the sources of savings, will stop the accumulation of capital, will retard the development of trade, and will benumb human industry.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Dry Up, Comfort, Population

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Gustave de Beaumont (1968). “Tocqueville and Beaumont on social reform”

  43 Copy quote

• 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Education, Women, Growing

  Democracy in America vol. 2, sec. 3, ch. 12 (1840) (translation by Henry Reeve)

  11 Copy quote

• Even despots accept the excellence of liberty. The simple truth is that they wish to keep it for themselves and promote the idea that no one else is at all worthy of it. Thus, our opinion
  of liberty does not reveal our differences but the relative value which we place on our fellow man. We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is
  in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Simple, Men

  "'L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution' ('The Old Regime and the Revolution')". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Gerald Bevan. Author's Foreword, 2008.

  24 Copy quote

• When a large number of organs of the press come to advance along the same track, their influence becomes almost irresistible in the long term, and public opinion, struck always from the same side, ends by yielding under their blows.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Blow, Numbers, Long

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2012). “Democracy in America”, p.178, University of Chicago Press

  27 Copy quote

• Socialism is a new form of slavery.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Political, Slavery, Politics

  "Notes for a Speech on Socialism" by Alexis de Tocqueville, 1848.

  15 Copy quote

• There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Party, Men, America

  105 Copy quote

• I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Sacrifice, Keys, Support

  40 Copy quote

• Religion in America . . . Must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions for that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it . . . I do know know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion - for who can search the human heart? - But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Party, Heart

  9 Copy quote

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