Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Liberty

Quotes about: Liberty

• 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

  Patriotic, Equality, Differences

  "Discours prononcé à l'assemblée constituante le 12 Septembre 1848 sur la question du droit au travail". Oeuvres complètes, Volume IX, p. 546, 1866.

• 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

  Peace, War, Mean

  Democracy in America vol. 2, sec. 3, ch. 22 (1840) (translation by Henry Reeve)

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

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Pregnancy, Liberty, Ethics

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1847). “Democracy in America”, p.11

• I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Believe, Should Have, Liberty

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

• Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Liberty, Inquiry

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.363

• Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Liberty, Conflict, Christianity

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

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Liberty, Libertarian

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1978). “The old régime and the French Revolution”, Peter Smith Pub Inc

• 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

• 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

  Mind, Liberty, Impossible

• Even despots accept the excellence of liberty. The simple truth is that they wish to keep it for themselves and promote the idea that no one else is at all worthy of it. Thus, our opinion
  of liberty does not reveal our differences but the relative value which we place on our fellow man. We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is
  in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Simple, Men

  "'L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution' ('The Old Regime and the Revolution')". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Gerald Bevan. Author's Foreword, 2008.

• Because Roman civilization perished through barbarian invasions, we are perhaps too much inclined to think that that is the only way a civilization can die. If the lights that guide us ever go out, they will fade little by little, as if of their own accord.... We therefore should not console ourselves by thinking that the barbarians are still a long way off. Some peoples may let the torch be snatched from their hands, but others stamp it out themselves.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Thinking, Light, Hands

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

• Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity. Trade makes men independent of one another and gives them a high idea of their personal importance: it leads them to want to manage their own affairs and teaches them to succeed therein. Hence it makes them inclined to liberty but disinclined to revolution.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Love, Passion, Independent

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book Three, Chapter XXI, 1840.

• Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Faith, Ties, People

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1862). “Democracy in America”, p.393

• It is above all in the present democratic age that the true friends of liberty and human grandeur must remain constantly vigilant and ready to prevent the social power from lightly sacrificing the particular rights of a few individuals to the general execution of its designs. In such times there is no citizen so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed, and there are no individual rights so unimportant that they can be sacrificed to arbitrariness with impunity.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  True Friend, Sacrifice, Rights

• 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

  Freedom, Writing, America

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2001). “Democracy in America”, p.110, Penguin

• 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

• I have an intellectual inclination for democratic institutions, but I am instinctively an aristocrat, which means that I despise and fear the masses. I passionately love liberty, legality, the respect for rights, but not democracy....liberty is my foremost passion. That is the truth.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Mean, Passion, Rights

• [Liberty] considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Law, Liberty, Duration

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1862). “Democracy in America”, p.55

• The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their Nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Agreement, Names, People

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1847). “Democracy in America”, p.419

• [T]he main evil of the present democratic institutions of the united states does not raise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Europe, Evil

• Freedom sees in religion the companion of its struggles and its triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, the divine source of its rights. It considers religion as the safeguard of mores; and mores as the guarantee of laws and the pledge of its duration.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Religious, Struggle, Rights

• The civil jury is the most effective form of sovereignty of the people. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During the reigns of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and Elizabeth I (1158-1603), the civil jury did in reality save the liberties of England.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Reality, Men, Law

• Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  School, People, Democracy

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2009). “Democracy in America: Volumes I & II”, p.127, The Floating Press

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

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Passion, Liberty, Dignity

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Roger Boesche, James Toupin (1986). “Selected Letters on Politics and Society”, p.115, Univ of California Press

• 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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