Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Authority

Quotes about: Authority

• Rulers who destroy men's freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. ... They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Trying, Moral

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2010). “The Old Regime and the French Revolution”, p.45, Anchor

• What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish?

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Sleep, Eye, Thinking

• As I see it, only God can be all-powerful without danger, because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. Thus there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment (p. 290).

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Powerful, Justice, Earth

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Arthur Goldhammer (2004). “Democracy in America”, p.290, Library of America

• 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

• 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

• 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

• In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Christian, Country, Religious

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2015). “Democracy in America: Book One”, p.575, eKitap Projesi via PublishDrive

• There are at the present time two great nations in the world--the Russians and the Americans. The American relies upon his personal interest to accomplish his ends and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common sense of the people. The Russian centers all his authority of society in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting point is different and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Destiny, Two, Rely Upon

• It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquility of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Liberty, Care, Littles

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1870). “American Institutions”, p.116

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