Alexis de Tocqueville

You need not value it yourself if you do not wish to; but you ought to allow it to us who do…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

It is odd to watch with what feverish ardour Americans pursue prosperity, ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they might not…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

To commit violent and unjust acts, it is not enough for a government to have the will or even the power; the…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

The more I view the independence of the press in its principal effects, the more I convince myself that among the moderns…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“Minor parties are, on the other hand, generally deficient in political faith. As they are not sustained or dignified by a lofty…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years. When I…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“The European generally submits to a public officer because he represents a superior force; but to an American he represents a right.…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

Men cannot abandon their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect and a sort of violent distortion of their true…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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

— 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

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“The foremost, or indeed the sole condition, which is required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

There is hardly a congressman prepared to go home until he has at least one speech printed and sent to his constituents,…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power, or debased by the habit of obedience; but by the exercise of a…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

I am deeply convinced that any permanent, regular administrative system whose aim is to provide for the needs of the poor will…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

When the people rule, they must be rendered happy, or they will overturn the state.

— Alexis de Tocqueville

Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

In towns it is impossible to prevent men from assembling, getting excited together and forming sudden passionate resolves. Towns are like great…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

There are at the present time two great nations in the world--the Russians and the Americans. The American relies upon his personal…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

[T]he main evil of the present democratic institutions of the united states does not raise, as is often asserted in Europe, from…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

There is in fact a manly and legitimate passion for equality that spurs all men to wish to be strong and esteemed.…

— Alexis de Tocqueville