Top 300 Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 2 of 7

51. “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

52. “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

53. “It is far more important to resist apathy than anarchy or despotism, for apathy can give rise, almost indifferently, to either one.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

54. “America is a country where they have freedom of speech but everyone says the same thing.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

55. “At the head of any new undertaking where in France you would find the government, or in England some great lord, in the United States you are sure to find an association.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

56. “Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. 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

57. “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

58. “The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

59. “I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

60. “When none but the wealthy had watches, they were almost all very good ones; few are now made which are worth much, but everybody has one in his pocket.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

61. “It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in the great things than in the little ones, if it were possible to be secure of the one without the other.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

62. “The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer without complaint, and to die singing.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

63. “The jury, which is the most energetic means to make the people rule, is also the most effective means to teach them to rule.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

64. “Lawyers belong to the people by birth and interest, and to the aristocracy by habit and taste; they may be looked upon as the connecting link of the two great classes of society.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

65. “This so-called tolerance, which, in my opinion, is nothing but a huge indifference.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

66. “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

67. “A nation cannot long remain strong when every man belonging to it is individually weak.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

68. “One of the distinguishing characteristics of a democratic period is the taste that all men have for easy success and present enjoyment. This occurs in the pursuits of the intellect as well as in others.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

69. “The more alike men are, the weaker each feels in the face of all.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

70. “Next to hating their enemies, men are most inclined to flatter them.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

71. “History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

72. “Evils which are patiently endured when they seem inevitable become intolerable once the idea of escape from them is suggested.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

73. “The prejudice of the race appears stronger in the States that have abolished slaves than in the States where slavery still exists. White carpenters, white bricklayers, and white painters will not work side by side with the blacks in the North but do it in almost every Southern State...”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

74. “If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States – that is to say, they will owe their origin not to the equality but to the inequality of conditions.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

75. “As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

76. “If men are to remain civilized or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

77. “There are at the present time two great nations in the world allude to the Russians and the Americans All other nations seem to have nearly reached their national limits, and have only to maintain their power; these alone are proceeding along a path to which no limit can be perceived.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

78. “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

79. “The most perilous moment for a bad government is when it seeks to mend its ways. Only consummate statecraft can enable a king to save his throne when, after a long spell of oppression, he sets out to improve the lot of his subjects.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

80. “The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

81. “As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

82. “The more government takes the place of associations, the more will individuals lose the idea of forming associations and need the government to come to their help. That is a vicious circle of cause and effect.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

84. “Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

85. “I avow that I do not hold that complete and instantaneous love for the freedom of the press that one accords to things whose nature is unqualifiedly good. I love it out of consideration for the evils it prevents much more than for the good it does.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

86. “We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

87. “I know of no other country where love of money has such a grip on men’s hearts or where stronger scorn is expressed for the theory of permanent equality of property.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

88. “In America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

89. “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

90. “Sixty years is too brief a compass for man’s imagination. The incomplete joys of this world can never satisfy his heart.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

91. “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

92. “Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

94. “History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery containing a host of copies and very few originals.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

95. “There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

96. “Amongst democratic nations, each new generation is a new people.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

97. “Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach...”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

98. “Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

99. “The French constitute the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation in Europe and the best qualified in turn to become an object of admiration, hatred, pity or terror but never indifference.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

100. “Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville