Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes - Page 2

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

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Art, Being Free, Use

  27 Copy quote

• Socialism is a new form of slavery.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Political, Slavery, Politics

  "Notes for a Speech on Socialism" by Alexis de Tocqueville, 1848.

  16 Copy quote

• There is, indeed, a most dangerous passage in the history of a democratic people. When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education and their experience of free institutions, the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint at the sight of new possessions they are about to obtain. In their intense and exclusive anxiety to make a fortune they lose sight of the close connection that exists between the private fortune of each and the prosperity of all.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Sight, Self

  50 Copy quote

• Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Long, Benefits, Materials

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2010). “The Old Regime and the French Revolution”, p.168, Anchor

  18 Copy quote

• When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Rights, Self

  23 Copy quote

• Despotism can do without faith but freedom cannot.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Despotism, Tyranny, Can Do

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2012). “Democracy in America”, p.282, University of Chicago Press

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  26 Copy quote

• America is great because she is good.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  America, Democracy In America

  9 Copy quote

• I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Sacrifice, Keys, Support

  42 Copy quote

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

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Friendship, Hatred, Politics

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1995). “Recollections: the French Revolution of 1848”, p.73, Transaction Publishers

  17 Copy quote

• There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Powerful, Passion, Heart

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1839). “Democracy in America”, p.50

  25 Copy quote

• 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

  55 Copy quote

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

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Political, Taxation

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2003). “Democracy in America”, p.708, Regnery Publishing

  76 Copy quote

• 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Life, Pain, Sacrifice

  9 Copy quote

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

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Freedom, Real

  Alexis De Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy In America -- Vol. 1”, p.337

  12 Copy quote

• Religion in America . . . Must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions for that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it . . . I do know know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion - for who can search the human heart? - But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Party, Heart

  11 Copy quote

• When an American asks for the cooperation of his fellow citizens, it is seldom refused; and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great good will.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Citizens, Cooperation, Asks

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2015). “Democracy in America: Book Two”, p.296, eKitap Projesi

  9 Copy quote

• It is indeed difficult to imagine how men who have entirely renounced the habit of managing their own affairs could be successful in choosing those who ought to lead them. It is impossible to believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever emerge from the ballots of a nation of servants.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Wise, Believe, Successful

  32 Copy quote

• When a large number of organs of the press come to advance along the same track, their influence becomes almost irresistible in the long term, and public opinion, struck always from the same side, ends by yielding under their blows.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Blow, Numbers, Long

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2012). “Democracy in America”, p.178, University of Chicago Press

  28 Copy quote

• Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Mother, Country, America

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book Two, Chapter V, 1840.

  7 Copy quote

• Generally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Simple, Ideas, Mind

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Arthur Goldhammer (2004). “Democracy in America”, p.186, Library of America

  11 Copy quote

• It is odd to watch with what feverish ardour Americans pursue prosperity, ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they might not have chosen the shortest route to get it. They cleave to the things of this world as if assured they will never die, and yet rush to snatch any that comes within their reach, as if they expected to stop living before relishing them. Death steps in, in the end, and stops them, before they have grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes them.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Tired, Watches, World

  42 Copy quote

• If I were asked ... to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Education, Women, Growing

  Democracy in America vol. 2, sec. 3, ch. 12 (1840) (translation by Henry Reeve)

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  39 Copy quote

• Muhammad brought down from heaven and put into the Koran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories. The Gospels on the other hand, deal only with the general relations between man and God and between man and man. Beyond that, they teach nothing and do not oblige people to believe anything. That alone, among a thousand reasons, is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power long in ages of enlightenment and democracy, while Christianity is destined to reign in such ages, as in all others.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Religious, Believe, Men

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book One, Chapter V, 1840.

  66 Copy quote

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