Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes - Page 12

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A great democratic revolution is taking place in our midst.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Revolution, Midst, Democratic

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I am unaware of his plans but I shall never stop believing in them because I cannot fathom them and I prefer to mistrust my own intellectual capacities than his justice.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Believe, Justice, Intellectual

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Local assemblies of the people constitute the strength of free nations. Municipal institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science: they bring it within the people's reach, and teach them how to use and enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.

Alexis de Tocqueville

School, Government, People

Alexis de Tocqueville (1851). “The Republic of the United States of America: And Its Political Institutions, Reviewed and Examined”, p.62

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In democratic countries, however opulent a man is supposed to be, he is almost always discontented with his fortune, because he finds that he is less rich than his father was, and he fears that his sons will be less rich than himself.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Country, Father, Son

Alexis De Tocqueville (2004). “Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II”, p.463, Bantam Classics

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All revolutions more or less threaten the tenure of property: but most of those who live in democratic countries are possessed of property - not only are they possessed of property but they live in the condition of men who set the greatest store upon their property.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Wisdom, Country, Men

Alexis De Tocqueville (2004). “Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II”, p.534, Bantam Classics

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It is from the midst of this putrid sewer that the greatest river of human industry springs up and carries fertility to the whole world. From this foul drain pure gold flows forth.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Spring, Rivers, Gold

Writing about Manchester in 'Voyage en Angleterre et en Irlande de 1835' 2 July

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[R]eligion cannot share the material strength of the rulers without being burdened with some of the animosity roused against them.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Church, Share, States

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

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To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to mimic nature, to ransack the world in order to gratify the passions of a man, is not thought of, but to add a few yards of land to your field, to plant an orchard, or enlarge a dwelling, to always be making life more comfortable and convenient, to avoid trouble, and to satisfy the smallest wants without effort and almost without cost. These are small objects, but the soul clings to them; it dwells upon them closely and day by day, till they at last shut out the rest of the world and sometimes intervene between itself and heaven.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Passion, Men, Dwelling

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In the United States, associations are established to promote the public safety, commerce, industry, morality, and religion. There is no end which the human will despairs of attaining through the combined power of individuals united into a society.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Despair, Collaboration, United States

"Democracy in America".

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Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types-religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute....At the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Religious, Government, Forever

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

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In the absence of government each man learns to think, to act for himself, without counting on the support of an outside force which, however vigilant one supposes it to be, can never answer all social needs. Man, thus accustomed to seek his well-being only through his own efforts, raises himself in his own opinion as he does in the opinion of others; his soul becomes larger and stronger at the same time.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Men, Thinking, Support

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Nations are less disposed to make revolutions in proportion as personal property is augmented and distributed among them, and as the number of those possessing it is increased.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Wisdom, Numbers, Politics

Alexis de Tocqueville (1840). “Democracy in America”, p.190

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Better use has been made of association and this powerful instrument of action has been applied for more varied aims in America than anywhere else in the world.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Powerful, America, Democracy

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

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He [Napoleon] was as great as a man can be without morality.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Sarcastic, Men, Morality

"Discours de réception a L'Académie Française prononcé le 21 Avril 1842". Oeuvres complètes, vol. IX, p. 17, 1866.

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In democracies, nothing is more great or more brilliant than commerce: it attracts the attention of the public, and fills the imagination of the multitude; all energetic passions are directed towards it.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Passion, Imagination, Democracy

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

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The man who submits to violence is debased by his compliance; but when he submits to that right of authority which he acknowledges in a fellow creature, he rises in some measure above the person who give the command.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Men, Giving, Violence

Alexis de Tocqueville (1839). “Democracy in America”, p.241

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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

Thinking, Goal, March

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

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

Alexis de Tocqueville

Ideas, Proof, Intellect

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

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With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Skills, Numbers, People

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

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The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is almost always an improvement on its immediate predecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Government, Reform, Critical Moments

Alexis de Tocqueville (2012). “The Old Regime and the French Revolution”, p.214, Courier Corporation

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

Alexis de Tocqueville

Vision, Democracy, Care

Democracy in America vol. 2, sec. 1, ch. 17 (1840) (translation by Henry Reeve)

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When the reality of power has been surrendered, it's playing a dangerous game to seek to retain the appearance of it; the external aspect of vigor can sometimes support a debilitated body, but most often it manages to deal it the final blow.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Blow, Power, Reality

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In cities men cannot be prevented from concerting together, and from awakening a mutual excitement which prompts sudden and passionate resolutions. Cities may be looked upon as large assemblies, of which all the inhabitants are members; their populace exercises a prodigious influence upon the magistrates, and frequently executes its own wishes without their intervention.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Exercise, Men, Cities

Alexis de Tocqueville (1839). “Democracy in America”, p.289

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The taste which men have for liberty and that which they feel for equality are, in fact, two different things...among democratic nations they are two unequal things.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Men, Two, Liberty

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The first who attracts the eye, the first in enlightenment, in power and in happiness, is the white man, the European, man par excellence; below him appear the Negro and the Indian. These two unfortunate races have neither birth, nor face, nor language, nor mores in common; only their misfortunes look alike. Both occupy an equally inferior position in the country that they inhabit; both experience the effects of tyranny; and if their miseries are different, they can accuse the same author for them.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Country, Eye, Men

Alexis de Tocqueville (2012). “Democracy in America”, p.303, University of Chicago Press

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Alexis de Tocqueville

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Born: July 29, 1805
Died: April 16, 1859
Occupation: Historian
Cite this Page: Citation

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