Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes - Page 8

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• Men living in democratic times have many passions, but most of their passions either end in the love of riches, or proceed from it.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Passion, Men, Riches

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.278

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• If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their character by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that unlimited authority which I should refuse to any one of them.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Character, Men, Numbers

  Alexis de Tocqueville, John Canfield Spencer (1854). “American Institutions and Their Influence”, p.260

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• Freedom sees in religion the companion of its struggles and its triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, the divine source of its rights. It considers religion as the safeguard of mores; and mores as the guarantee of laws and the pledge of its duration.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Religious, Struggle, Rights

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• I do not find fault with equality for drawing men into the pursuit of forbidden pleasures, but for absorbing them entirely in the search for the pleasures that are permitted.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Drawing, Faults

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• Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years. When I contemplate the ardour with which the Anglo-Americans prosecute commercial enterprise, the advantages which befriend them, and the success of their undertakings, I cannot refrain from believing that they will one day become the first maritime power of the globe. They are born to rule the seas, as the Romans were to conquer the world.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Believe, Destiny, Men

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1835). “Democracy in America”, p.447

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• Comfort becomes a goal when distinctions of rank are abolished and privileges destroyed.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Goal, Comfort, Privilege

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• If there ever are great revolutions there, they will be caused by the presence of the blacks upon American soil.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Political, Soil, Revolution

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

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• Countries, therefore, when lawmaking falls exclusively to the lot of the poor cannot hope for much economy in public expenditure; expenses will always be considerable, either because taxes cannot touch those who vote for them or because they are assessed in a way to prevent that.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Fall, Way

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

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• I know of no other country where love of money has such a grip on men's hearts or where stronger scorn is expressed for the theory of permanent equality of property

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Love, Country, Money

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

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• Among the laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it seems to me, than all the others. If men are to remain civilized or to become civilized, the art of association must develop and improve among them at the same speed as equality of conditions spreads.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Art, Men, Law

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

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• The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Ideas, Numbers, Democracy

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

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• The foremost or indeed sole condition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality or to get men to believe you love it. Thus, the science of despotism, which was once so complex, has been simplified and reduced, as it were, to a single principle.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Believe, Men, Order

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

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• Useful undertakings which require sustained attention and vigorous precision in order to succeed often end up by being abandoned, for, in America, as elsewhere, the people move forward by sudden impulses and short-lived efforts.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Moving, America, Order

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

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• [T]he main evil of the present democratic institutions of the united states does not raise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Europe, Evil

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• Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare them for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Fate, Men, Power

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.392

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• The more I view the independence of the press in its principal effects, the more I convince myself that among the moderns the independence of the press is the capital and so to speak the constitutive element of freedom.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Views, Independence, Elements

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• The civil jury is the most effective form of sovereignty of the people. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During the reigns of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and Elizabeth I (1158-1603), the civil jury did in reality save the liberties of England.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Reality, Men, Law

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• The progress of democracy seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Democracy, Progress, Uniforms

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2015). “Democracy in America: Book One”, p.30, eKitap Projesi

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• When an opinion has taken root in a democracy and established itself in the minds of the majority, it afterward persists by itself, needing no effort to maintain it since no one attacks it.
  “Those who at first rejected it as false come in the end to adopt it as accepted, and even those who still at the bottom of their hearts oppose it keep their views to themselves, taking
  great care to avoid a dangerous and futile contest.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Taken, Heart, Views

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

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• He who seeks freedom for anything but freedom's self is made to be a slave.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Self, Slave, Made

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2013). “The Old Regime and the Revolution: The controversial bestselling guide to the origins of the French Revolution”, p.213, Harriman House Limited

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• Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Past, Vices, Energy

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

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• Nothing is more annoying in the ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. A foreigner will gladly agree to praise much in their country, but he would like to be allowed to criticize something, and that he is absolutely refused.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Political, Ordinary

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

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• No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Peace, War

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2001). “Democracy in America”, p.268, Penguin

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• No men are less addicted to reverie than the citizens of a democracy.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Democracy, Citizens

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

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• In America one of the first things done in a new State is to make the post go there; in the forests of Michigan there is no cabin so isolated, no valley so wild, but that letters and newspapers arrive at least once a week.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  America, Cabins, Valleys

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