110+ Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes On Democracy, Individualism And Slavery

Alexis de Tocqueville was a French historian and political thinker best known for his work Democracy in America, published in 1835. He was an early advocate of democracy and an outspoken critic of the French aristocracy. He is remembered for his insights into the functioning of democratic societies, particularly in the United States, and his analysis of the potential threats to democracy. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville on democracy, individualism, slavery.

Top 10 Alexis De Tocqueville Quotes

1. The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
2. 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.
3. There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
4. A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
5. There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
9. 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.
10. A man's admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.

Alexis De Tocqueville Short Quotes

• Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
• Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
• When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
• In politics... shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
• The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
• General ideas are no proof of the strength, but rather of the insufficiency of the human intellect.
• History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
• Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
• To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
• Comfort becomes a goal when distinctions of rank are abolished and privileges destroyed.

Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Democracy

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

As for me, I am deeply a democrat; this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can't have it both ways. Socialism is a new form of slavery. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express. — Alexis de Tocqueville

America is great because she is good. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power. — Alexis de Tocqueville

I have an intellectual inclination for democratic institutions, but I am instinctively an aristocrat, which means that I despise and fear the masses. I passionately love liberty, legality, the respect for rights, but not democracy....liberty is my foremost passion. That is the truth. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The progress of democracy seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Individualism

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.... The subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance. — Alexis de Tocqueville

One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government...is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

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

However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Whatever may be the general endeavor of a community to render its members equal and alike, the personal pride of individuals will always seek to rise above the line, and to form somewhere an inequality to their own advantage. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life; what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion. — Alexis de Tocqueville

They all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point. — Alexis de Tocqueville

In the United States, associations are established to promote the public safety, commerce, industry, morality, and religion. There is no end which the human will despairs of attaining through the combined power of individuals united into a society. — Alexis de Tocqueville

In democratic centuries, on the contrary, when the duties of each individual toward the species are much clearer, devotion toward one man becomes rarer: the bond of human affections is extended and loosened. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Slavery

Socialism is a new form of slavery. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Slavery...dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About America

The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that the king could do no wrong . The Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.... If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority. — Alexis de Tocqueville

In America, conscription is unknown; men are enlisted for payment. Compulsory recruitment is so alien to the ideas and so foreign to the customs of the people of the United States that I doubt whether they would ever dare to introduce it into their law. — 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

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

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

Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved. — 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

Useful undertakings which require sustained attention and vigorous precision in order to succeed often end up by being abandoned, for, in America, as elsewhere, the people move forward by sudden impulses and short-lived efforts. — Alexis de Tocqueville

In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Freedom

Rulers who destroy men's freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. ... They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave. — Alexis de Tocqueville

I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Despotism can do without faith but freedom cannot. — Alexis de Tocqueville

One has freedom as the principal means of action; the other has servitude. Their . . . paths [are] diverse; nevertheless, each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world. — Alexis de Tocqueville

[Liberty] considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom. — Alexis de Tocqueville

To get the inestimable good that freedom of the press assures one must know how to submit to the inevitable evil it gives rise to. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal, but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Democratic

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The taste which men have for liberty and that which they feel for equality are, in fact, two different things...among democratic nations they are two unequal things. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

There are two things which will always be very difficult for a democratic nation: to start a war and to end it. — Alexis de Tocqueville

There are two things that a democratic people will always find very difficult, to begin a war and to end it. — Alexis de Tocqueville

I am far from denying that newspapers in democratic countries lead citizens to do very ill-considered things in common; but without newspapers there would be hardly any common action at all. So they mend many more ills than they cause. — 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

Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Liberty

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity? — Alexis de Tocqueville

Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details. — Alexis de Tocqueville

It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquility of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life. — Alexis de Tocqueville

I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The civil jury is the most effective form of sovereignty of the people. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During the reigns of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and Elizabeth I (1158-1603), the civil jury did in reality save the liberties of England. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

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

Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Life

Life is to be entered upon with courage. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Nothing is more annoying in the ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. A foreigner will gladly agree to praise much in their country, but he would like to be allowed to criticize something, and that he is absolutely refused. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

Alexis de Tocqueville Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support — Alexis de Tocqueville

When a large number of organs of the press come to advance along the same track, their influence becomes almost irresistible in the long term, and public opinion, struck always from the same side, ends by yielding under their blows. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men and to relieve their distresses. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public. — 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

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

When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. — Alexis de Tocqueville

If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic. — Alexis de Tocqueville

There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Any measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse. — Alexis de Tocqueville

It is the dissimilarities and inequalities among men which give rise to the notion of honor; as such differences become less, it grows feeble; and when they disappear, it will vanish too. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details, which must be attended to if rules have to be adapted to different men, instead of indiscriminately subjecting all men to the same rule. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The evil which one suffers patiently as inevitable seems insupportable as soon as he conceives the idea of escaping from it. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

It is an axiom of political science in the United States that the sole means of neutralizing the effects of newspapers is to multiply their number. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet. — Alexis de Tocqueville

On close inspection, we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity of an absolute government. — Alexis de Tocqueville

In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are not disinterested, but they are gentle. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

Democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom: left to themselves they will seek it, cherish it, and view any deprivation of it with regret. But for equality their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer without complaint, and to die singing. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

On this waterlogged landscape....are scattered palaces and hovels....It is here that the human spirit becomes perfect, and at the same time brutalised, that civilisation produces its marvels and that civilised man returns to the savage. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Among the droves of men with political ambitions in the United States, I found very few with that virile candor, that manly independence of thought, that often distinguished Americans in earlier times and that is invariably the preeminent trait of great characters wherever it exists. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their Nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Among the laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it seems to me, than all the others. If men are to remain civilized or to become civilized, the art of association must develop and improve among them at the same speed as equality of conditions spreads. — Alexis de Tocqueville

The principle of equality does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth. — Alexis de Tocqueville

It is easy to see that, even in the freedom of early youth, an American girl never quite loses control of herself; she enjoys all permitted pleasures without losing her head about any of them, and her reason never lets the reins go, though it may often seem to let them flap. — 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 their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny. — 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

As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity. — Alexis de Tocqueville

I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned. — Alexis de Tocqueville

In the United States, except for slaves, servants and the destitute fed by townships, everyone has the vote and this is an indirect contributor to law-making. Anyone wishing to attack the law is thus reduced to adopting one of two obvious courses: they must either change the nation's opinion or trample its wishes under foot. — Alexis de Tocqueville

Generally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex. — Alexis de Tocqueville

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

Life Lessons by Alexis de Tocqueville

1. Alexis de Tocqueville's life and writings emphasize the importance of understanding the social and political forces that shape society. He encourages us to be aware of the power of public opinion, the need for strong civic engagement, and the importance of protecting individual liberties.
2. He also stresses the need for citizens to be mindful of the potential dangers of unchecked power and to be vigilant in defending the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority.
3. His writings remind us to strive for justice, equality, and freedom, and to be mindful of the consequences of our actions on society.