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Law Quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

23 Law quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

All Law quotes Alexis de Tocqueville’s page

Alexis de Tocqueville’s reflections on law weave together his keen eye for society and governance. Across twenty‑three entries you’ll find a balance of historical context and timeless observation, offering a nuanced look at how legal structures shape public life.

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Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint imposed upon her by the laws of man.

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Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting…

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[Liberty] considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the…

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“nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon precedents.”

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By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the…

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“Consequently, in the United States the law favors those classes which are most interested in evading it elsewhere.”

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There is one universal law that has been formed, or at least adoptedby the majority of mankind. That law is justice. Justice…

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

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Among the laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it seems to me, than all the others. If…

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The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is…

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No state of society or laws can render men so much alike but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose some differences…

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“I readily discovered the prodigious influence that this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society; it gives a peculiar direction…

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In the United States, except for slaves, servants and the destitute fed by townships, everyone has the vote and this is an…

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In America, conscription is unknown; men are enlisted for payment. Compulsory recruitment is so alien to the ideas and so foreign to…

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Freedom sees in religion the companion of its struggles and its triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, the divine source of its…

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When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply…

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A French observer is surprised to hear how often an English or an American lawyer quotes the opinions of others, and how…

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Muhammad professed to derive from Heaven, and he has inserted in the Koran, not only a body of religious doctrines, but political…

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Muhammad brought down from heaven and put into the Koran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and…

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“The chief care of the legislators [in the colonies of New England] was the maintenance of orderly conduct and good morals in…

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There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions…

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The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief…

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The civil jury is the most effective form of sovereignty of the people. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During…

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All around you everything is on the move,

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I have no hesitation in saying that although the American woman never leaves her domestic sphere and is in some respects very dependent within…

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No state of society or laws can render men so much alike but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose some differences between them;…

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I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can…

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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…

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

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“I am unacquainted with His designs, but I shall not cease to believe in them because I cannot fathom them, and I had rather…

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I questioned the faithful of all communions; I particularly sought the society of clergymen, who are the depositories of the various creeds and have…

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

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

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“There is a twofold liberty, natural (I mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil or federal. The first is common to man…

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Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer…

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