Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes - Page 5

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• The most perilous moment for a bad government is when it seeks to mend its ways. Only consummate statecraft can enable a king to save his throne when, after a long spell of oppression, he sets out to improve the lot of his subjects.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Kings, Government, Long

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1982). “Alexis de Tocqueville on Democracy, Revolution, and Society”, p.230, University of Chicago Press

  19 Copy quote

• Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Believe, Exercise, Men

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2004). “Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II”, p.39, Bantam Classics

  10 Copy quote

• However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Pride, Equality, Trying

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book Three, Chapter XIV, 1840.

  9 Copy quote

• All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Peace, War, Mean

  Democracy in America vol. 2, sec. 3, ch. 22 (1840) (translation by Henry Reeve)

  45 Copy quote

• I avow that I do not hold that complete and instantaneous love for the freedom of the press that one accords to things whose nature is unqualifiedly good. I love it out of consideration for the evils it prevents much more than for the good it does.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Evil, Doe, Consideration

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2012). “Democracy in America”, p.172, University of Chicago Press

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• Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity. Trade makes men independent of one another and gives them a high idea of their personal importance: it leads them to want to manage their own affairs and teaches them to succeed therein. Hence it makes them inclined to liberty but disinclined to revolution.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Love, Passion, Independent

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book Three, Chapter XXI, 1840.

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• Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Passion, Enemy, Delight

  "Democracy in America".

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• Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Institutions, Accustomed

  19 Copy quote

• It is an axiom of political science in the United States that the sole means of neutralizing the effects of newspapers is to multiply their number.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Mean, Numbers, Political

  9 Copy quote

• I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, World, Paganism

  "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.

  9 Copy quote

• Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Power, Law, People

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

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• The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Law, Moral, Constitution

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

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• It is certain that despotism ruins individuals by preventing them from producing wealth much more than by depriving them of what they have already produced; it dries up the source of riches, while it usually respects acquired property. Freedom, on the contrary, produces far more goods than it destroys; and the nations which are favored by free institutions invariably find that their resources increase even more rapidly than their taxes.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Riches, Ruins, Wealth

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• Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and themselves.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Men, Giving

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.210

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• Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Doe, Chance, Prepared

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1896). “Recollections”, p.93, Library of Alexandria

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• The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Wind, Sea, Feet

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• Democracy encourages a taste for physical gratification; this taste, if it becomes excessive, soon disposes men to believe that all is matter only; and materialism, in its turn, hurries them on with mad impatience to these same delights; such is the fatal circle within which democratic nations are driven round. It were well that they should see the danger and hold back.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Believe, Men, Circles

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2015). “Democracy in America - Vol. I. and II.”, p.599, Read Books Ltd

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• When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Law, People, Justice

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2001). “Democracy in America”, p.107, Penguin

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• Slavery...dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Ignorance, Pride, Men

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2001). “Democracy in America”, p.37, Penguin

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• Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Higher

  Conversation with Nassau William Senior on May 22, 1850 "Correspondence and Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859", p. 94, 1872.

  23 Copy quote

• Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Moving, Men, Two

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

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• In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other prohibiting him from thinking at all.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Thinking, Two

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1840). “Democracy in America”, p.19

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• The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Giving Up, Party, Vocabulary

  "Viking Book of Aphorisms". Book by W. H. Auden, and Louis Kronenberger, p. 306, 1962.

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• The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men and to relieve their distresses. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Law, Age

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

  20 Copy quote

• It is above all in the present democratic age that the true friends of liberty and human grandeur must remain constantly vigilant and ready to prevent the social power from lightly sacrificing the particular rights of a few individuals to the general execution of its designs. In such times there is no citizen so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed, and there are no individual rights so unimportant that they can be sacrificed to arbitrariness with impunity.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  True Friend, Sacrifice, Rights

  11 Copy quote

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