Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes - Page 2

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• One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Weakness, Principles, Ordinary

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.34

  8 Copy quote

• A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Political, Taxation

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2003). “Democracy in America”, p.708, Regnery Publishing

  76 Copy quote

• In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Friendship, Hatred, Politics

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1995). “Recollections: the French Revolution of 1848”, p.73, Transaction Publishers

  17 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

  114 Copy quote

• I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Freedom, Real

  Alexis De Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy In America -- Vol. 1”, p.337

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• There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Law, Common Sense

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2003). “Democracy in America”, p.101, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

  73 Copy quote

• Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Art, Being Free, Use

  27 Copy quote

• The more government takes the place of associations, the more will individuals lose the idea of forming associations and need the government to come to their help. That is a vicious circle of cause and effect.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Circles, Ideas

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

  15 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.

  26 Copy quote

• There is, indeed, a most dangerous passage in the history of a democratic people. When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education and their experience of free institutions, the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint at the sight of new possessions they are about to obtain. In their intense and exclusive anxiety to make a fortune they lose sight of the close connection that exists between the private fortune of each and the prosperity of all.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Sight, Self

  52 Copy quote

• As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Money, Character, Answers

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Roger Boesche, James Toupin (1986). “Selected Letters on Politics and Society”, p.39, Univ of California Press

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• Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Moral

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2004). “Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II”, p.500, Bantam Classics

  34 Copy quote

• Righteous women in their circle of influence,
  beginning in the home, can turn the world around.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Home, Circles, World

  18 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

  42 Copy quote

• What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Done

  "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume I, Chapter XVIII, 1835.

  4 Copy quote

• Generally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Simple, Ideas, Mind

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Arthur Goldhammer (2004). “Democracy in America”, p.186, Library of America

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• America is great because she is good.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  America, Democracy In America

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• Muhammad brought down from heaven and put into the Koran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories. The Gospels on the other hand, deal only with the general relations between man and God and between man and man. Beyond that, they teach nothing and do not oblige people to believe anything. That alone, among a thousand reasons, is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power long in ages of enlightenment and democracy, while Christianity is destined to reign in such ages, as in all others.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Religious, Believe, Men

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book One, Chapter V, 1840.

  66 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

  28 Copy quote

• Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  People, Violence, Dangerous

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2013). “The Old Regime and the Revolution: The controversial bestselling guide to the origins of the French Revolution”, p.236, Harriman House Limited

  37 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

  11 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.

  16 Copy quote

• There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Christian, Country, Religious

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1870). “American Institutions”, p.388

  9 Copy quote

• The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Mind, Liberty, Impossible

  55 Copy quote

• Because Roman civilization perished through barbarian invasions, we are perhaps too much inclined to think that that is the only way a civilization can die. If the lights that guide us ever go out, they will fade little by little, as if of their own accord.... We therefore should not console ourselves by thinking that the barbarians are still a long way off. Some peoples may let the torch be snatched from their hands, but others stamp it out themselves.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Thinking, Light, Hands

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

  21 Copy quote

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