Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes - Page 3

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• There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Powerful, Passion, Heart

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1839). “Democracy in America”, p.50

  25 Copy quote

• Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Mother, Country, America

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

  7 Copy quote

• How could a society escape destruction if, when political ties are relaxed, moral ties are not tightened, and what can be done with a people master of itself if it not subject to God?

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Wisdom, Ties, People

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

  7 Copy quote

• It is odd to watch with what feverish ardour Americans pursue prosperity, ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they might not have chosen the shortest route to get it. They cleave to the things of this world as if assured they will never die, and yet rush to snatch any that comes within their reach, as if they expected to stop living before relishing them. Death steps in, in the end, and stops them, before they have grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes them.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Tired, Watches, World

  43 Copy quote

• Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Liberty, Conflict, Christianity

  12 Copy quote

• The character of Anglo-American civilization . . . is the product . . . of two perfectly distinct elements that elsewhere have often made war with each other, but which, in America, they have succeeded in incorporating somehow into one another and combining marvelously. I mean to speak of the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  War, Character, Mean

  4 Copy quote

• One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government...is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Individual Strength, Development

  15 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

  9 Copy quote

• Rulers who destroy men's freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. ... They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Trying, Moral

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2010). “The Old Regime and the French Revolution”, p.45, Anchor

  39 Copy quote

• everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Evil, Energy, Enough

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1836). “A Review of M. De Tocqueville's Work on Democracy in America ...”, p.10

  13 Copy quote

• The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Reflection, Law, Moral

  "De la supériorité des mœurs sur les lois". Oeuvres complètes, Volume VIII, p. 286., 1831.

  11 Copy quote

• Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Liberty, Inquiry

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.363

  27 Copy quote

• America is a country where they have freedom of speech but everyone says the same thing.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Freedom, America

  14 Copy quote

• The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that the king could do no wrong . The Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.... If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Kings, Omnipotence, America

  27 Copy quote

• The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Wisdom, Quality, Citizens

  9 Copy quote

• The prejudice of the race appears stronger in the States that have abolished slaves than in the States where slavery still exists. White carpenters, white bricklayers, and white painters will not work side by side with the blacks in the North but do it in almost every Southern State.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  War, White, Race

  8 Copy quote

• If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States - that is to say, they will owe their origin not to the equality but to the inequality of conditions.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Wisdom, Race, America

  Democracy in America vol. 2, sec. 3, ch. 21 (1840) (translation by Henry Reeve)

  9 Copy quote

• Life is to be entered upon with courage.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Courage, Worry, Anxiety

  33 Copy quote

• Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Enemy

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.5

  9 Copy quote

• The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Liberty, Libertarian

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1978). “The old régime and the French Revolution”, Peter Smith Pub Inc

  31 Copy quote

• 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, Men, Support

  "'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.

  12 Copy quote

• The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Reform, Investing

  Alexis de Tocqueville, François Furet, Francoise Melonio (1998). “The Old Regime and the Revolution, Volume I: The Complete Text”, p.222, University of Chicago Press

  14 Copy quote

• Every nation that has ended in tyranny has come to that end by way of good order. It certainly does not follow from this that peoples should scorn public peace, but neither should they be satisfied with that and nothing more. A nation that asks nothing of government but the maintenance of order is already a slave in the depths of its heart; it is a slave of its well-being, ready for the man who will put it in chains.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Heart, Men, Order

  14 Copy quote

• It would seem as if the rulers of our time sought only to use men in order to make things great; I wish that they would try a little more to make great men; that they would set less value on the work and more upon the workman; that they would never forget that a nation cannot long remain strong when every man belonging to it is individually weak; and that no form or combination of social polity has yet been devised to make an energetic people out of a community of pusillanimous and enfeebled citizens.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Strong, Men, Order

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2013). “Democracy in America -”, p.340, Read Books Ltd

  19 Copy quote

• I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Passion, Liberty, Dignity

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Roger Boesche, James Toupin (1986). “Selected Letters on Politics and Society”, p.115, Univ of California Press

  13 Copy quote

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