Alexis de Tocqueville quotes

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“Life is to be entered upon with courage.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“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

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“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

“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

“I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“In other words, 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

“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

“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“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

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“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

“In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“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

“No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say 'Gentlemen' to the person with whom he is conversing.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“No state of society or laws can render men so much alike but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose some differences between them; and though different men may sometimes find it their interest to combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their pleasure.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville