Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes

I have always thought that in revolutions, especially democratic revolutions, madmen, not those so c...

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

The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.

Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.

The free worker receives a wage; the slave an education, food, care, clothing; the money that the ma...

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive tast...

America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

Every nation that has ended in tyranny has come to that end by way of good order. It certainly does ...

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time o...

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is i...

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her...

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and ...

We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those whic...

An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks t...

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with...

As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the ...

Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is not...

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

It is indeed difficult to imagine how men who have entirely renounced the habit of managing their ow...

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

I follow the course marked out by my principles and, what is more, enjoy a deep and noble pleasure i...

America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an im...

Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of c...

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

These diverse effects of slavery and freedom are easily understood: … the men in Kentucky [neither] ...

Sixty years is too brief a compass for man’s imagination. The incomplete joys of this world can neve...

I passionately love liberty, legality, respect for rights, but not democracy. That is what I find in...

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

The principle of equality, which makes men independent of each other, gives them a habit and a taste...

The Americans of the United States do not let their dogs hunt the Indians as do the Spaniards in Mex...

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in fre...

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, ev...

In politics a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.

When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.

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

We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess but we excel in those whic...

It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health car...

No state of society or laws can render men so much alike but that education, fortune, and tastes wil...

I have always thought it rather interesting to follow the involuntary movements of fear in clever pe...

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

What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my...

Egotism fears its own self.

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

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the sur...

In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape...

It is above all in the present democratic age that the true friends of liberty and human grandeur mu...

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: wh...

Life is to be entered upon with courage.

Montaigne said long ago: "Were I not to follow the straight road for its straightness, I should foll...

Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry interests, in one word, so anti-...

[N]ow that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important thing...

It is extremely difficult to obtain a hearing from men living in democracies, unless it be to speak ...

The passion for war is so intense that there is no undertaking so mad, or so injurious to the welfar...

Durability is one of the chief elements of strength. Nothing is either loved or feared but that whic...

In America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civ...

I had rather mistrust my own capacity than God's justice.

Nations, as well as men, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in...

The poor man retains the prejudices of his forefathers without their faith, and their ignorance with...

A man is born; his first years go by in obscurity amid the pleasures or hardships of childhood. He g...

Another tendency, which is extremely natural to democratic nations and extremely dangerous, is that ...

The whole people contracts the habits and tastes of the magistrate.

The only way to neutralize the effect of public journals is to multiply them indefinitely.

A man who should undertake to inquire into everything for himself, could devote to each thing but li...

One has to understand that equality ends up by infiltrating the world of politics as it does everywh...

Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions; they want to be led, and they...

Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power, or debased by the habit of obedience; but by the exe...

On close inspection, we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-...

The happy and powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men...

There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by laws, or in which politi...

Whether democracy or aristocracy is the better form of government constitutes a very difficult quest...

In running over the pages of our history for seven hundred years, we shall scarcely find a single gr...

The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-mi...

There are at the present time two great nations in the world, which started from different points, b...

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot.

The greatest difficulty in antiquity with that of altering the law; among the moderns, it is that of...

The only nations which deny the utility of provincial liberties are those which have fewest of them;...

I have only to contemplate myself; man comes from nothing, passes through time, and disappears forev...

The short space of threescore years can never content the imagination of man; nor can the imperfect ...

I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office,...

Slavery received, but the prejudice to which it has given birth remains stationary.

During my stay in the United States, I witnessed the spontaneous formation of committees in a countr...

The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal; but it depends upo...

When justice is more certain and more mild, is at the same time more efficacious.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democracy, from beneath which the old ari...

For benefits by their very greatness spotlight the difference in conditions and arouse a secret anno...

I am unaware of his plans but I shall never stop believing in them because I cannot fathom them and ...

A whole nation cannot rise above itself.

Nothing is more necessary to the culture of the higher sciences, or of the more elevated departments...

A central administration enervates the nations in which it exists by incessantly diminishing their p...

Now, these eager and apprehensive men of small property constitute the class which is constantly inc...

Aristocracy naturally leads the human mind to the contemplation of the past, and fixes it there. Dem...

[Patriotism] is in itself a kind of religion: it does not reason, but it acts from the impulse of fa...

Nations as well as men require time to learn, whatever may be their intelligence or zeal.

There is a natural prejudice which prompts men to despise whomsoever has been their inferior long af...

What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my...

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

Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them by thei...

In the midst of the apparent diversity of human affairs, a certain number of primary facts may be di...

Human understanding more easily invents new things than new words.

In such an admirable position of the New World, man has no other enemy than himself.

The foremost, or indeed the sole condition, which is required in order to succeed in centralizing th...