Top 300 Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes (2025 Update)

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

2. “It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

4. “We need a new political science for a new world.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

5. “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

7. “Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

8. “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

9. “Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

10. “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

11. “America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man; and in his eyes what is not yet done is only what he has not attempted to do. – from Democracy in America.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

12. “There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

13. “But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

14. “It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights – the “right” to education, the “right” to health care, the “right” to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery – hay and a barn for human cattle.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

15. “What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

16. “Socialism is a new form of slavery.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

18. “Military discipline is merely a perfection of social servitude.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

19. “The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

20. “The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

21. “A man’s admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

23. “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

24. “The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

25. “I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

26. “No stigma attaches to the love of money in America, and provided it does not exceed the bounds imposed by public order, it is held in honor. The American will describe as noble and estimable ambition that our medieval ancestors would have called base cupidity.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

27. “A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just; and its justice constitutes its greatness and beauty.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

29. “No men are less addicted to reverie than the citizens of a democracy.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

30. “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

31. “Countries, therefore, when lawmaking falls exclusively to the lot of the poor cannot hope for much economy in public expenditure; expenses will always be considerable, either because taxes cannot touch those who vote for them or because they are assessed in a way to prevent that.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

32. “America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

34. “The happy and powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

35. “What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

36. “Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

37. “The world belongs to those with the most energy.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

40. “Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

41. “The position of the Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

43. “There is one universal law that has been formed, or at least adoptedby the majority of mankind. That law is justice. Justice forms the cornerstone of each nation’s law.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

45. “I know without needing to hear the voice of the Creator that the stars trace out in space the orbits which His hand has drawn.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

46. “You need not value it yourself if you do not wish to; but you ought to allow it to us who do value it.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

47. “In the township, as well as everywhere else, the people is the only source of power; but in no stage of government does the body of citizens exercise a more immediate influence.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

48. “From this foul drain the greatest stream of human industry flows out to fertilize the whole world. From this filthy sewer gold flows. Here humanity attains its most complete development and its most brutish, here civilization works its miracles and civilized man is turned almost into a savage.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

49. “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

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville