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Quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

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
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
Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say Gentlemen to the person with whom he is conversing.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
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
Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
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
History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
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
In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
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
The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life; what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
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
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
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
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
Life is to be entered upon with courage.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
It is the dissimilarities and inequalities among men which give rise to the notion of honor as such differences become less, it grows feeble and when they disappear, it will vanish too.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
He was as great as a man can be without morality.
– Alexis de Tocqueville