Alexis De Tocqueville quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Alexis De Tocqueville

Alexis De Tocqueville Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Alexis De Tocqueville on Wise Famous Quotes.

A nation cannot long remain strong when every man belonging to it is individually weak

Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power.

The evil which one suffers patiently as inevitable seems insupportable as soon as he conceives the idea of escaping from it.

He was as great as a man can be without morality.

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

A long war almost always places nations in this sad alternative: that their defeat delivers them to destruction and their triumph to despotism.

In the United States, there is no end which human will despairs of attaining through the combined power of individuals united in a society.

Of all the countries of the world America is the one where the movement of thought and human industry is the most continuous and swift.

Despotism can do without faith but freedom cannot.

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

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

General ideas are no proof of the strength, but rather of the insufficiency of the human intellect.

Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.

Consequently, in the United States the law favors those classes which are most interested in evading it elsewhere.

Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy; those who had anything united in common terror.

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

Theatre is the most democratic side of literature.

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

Men who so uneasily tolerate superiors patiently suffer a master, and show themselves proud and servile at the same time.

To mimic virtue is of every age; but the hypocrisy of luxury belongs more particularly to the ages of democracy.

Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint imposed upon her by the laws of man.

Absolute excellence is rarely to be found in any legislation.

When the people rule, they must be rendered happy, or they will overturn the state.

The aspect of American society is animated, because men and things are always changing; but it is monotonous, because all the changes are alike.

Sixty years is too brief a compass for man's imagination. The incomplete joys of this world can never satisfy his heart.

I am of opinion that a central administration enervates the nations in which it exists by incessantly diminishing their public spirit.

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

All around you everything is on the move,

The most durable monument of human labor is that which recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.

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

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

Durability is one of the chief elements of strength. Nothing is either loved or feared but that which is likely to endure.

Patriotism and religion are the only two motives in the world which can permanently direct the whole of a body politic to one end.

The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.

Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry interests, in one word, so anti-poetic, as the life of a man in the United States.

Nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon precedents.

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

In other words, the government of the democracy is the only one under which the power which lays on taxes escapes the payment of them.

There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

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.

The land was then naturally broken up into small portions, which the proprietor cultivated for himself.

The whole military power of the State is at the disposal of the Governor. He is the commander of the militia, and head of the armed force.

While he loved liberty, he detested the crimes that had been committed in its name. Jon J. Ingalls

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.

Egotism fears its own self.

Patriotism is most often nothing more but an extension of individual egoism

The world belongs to those with the most energy.

In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.

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

Democracy does not create strong ties between people. But it does make living together easier.

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

A great democratic revolution is taking place in our midst.

Men seldom take the opinion of their equal, or of a man like themselves, upon trust.

Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.

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

A whole nation cannot rise above itself.

Amongst democratic nations, each new generation is a new people.

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

I passionately love liberty, legality, respect for rights, but not democracy. That is what I find in the depth of my soul.

Physical strength therefore is one of the first conditions of happiness and even of the existence of nations.

Life is to be entered upon with courage.

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

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

For a taste for variety is one of the characteristic passions of democracy.

The most perilous moment for a bad government is one when it seeks to mend its ways.

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.

In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.

Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.

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

The invention of fire-arms equalized the villein and the noble on the field of battle; printing opened the same resources to the minds of all classes;

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

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

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

Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.

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

I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken a stronger hold on the affections of men.

I have always noticed in politics how often men are ruined by having too good a memory.

As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.

Amongst civilized nations revolts are rarely excited, except by such persons as have nothing to lose by them;

Under wage labor, the art advances, the artisan declines.

The two chief weapons which parties use in order to ensure success are the public press and the formation of associations.

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot.

Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.

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

What one must fear, moreover, is not so much the sight of the immorality of the great as that of immorality leading to greatness.

I see no clear reason why the doctrine of self-interest properly understood should turn men away from religious beliefs.

However enlightened and however skilful a central power may be, it cannot of itself embrace all the details of the existence of a great nation.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Of all nations, those submit to civilization with the most difficulty which habitually live by the chase.

Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.

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

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

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.

By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.

This so-called tolerance, which, in my opinion, is nothing but a huge indifference.

Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions because it loves moderation, delights in compromise an is most careful to avoid anger.