Quotessence
Home / Authors / Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes

Historian

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenStatesAmericaDemocraticIfsDemocracyNationsPeopleLibertyPoliticalWorldCountryGovernmentPoliticsUnitedUnited StatesDoeHumansMayLaw

Famous Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes

“The principle of equality, which makes men independent of each other, gives them a habit and a taste for following, in their private actions, no other guide but their own will. This complete independence, which they constantly enjoy towards their equals and in the intercourse of private life, tends to make them look upon all authority with a jealous eye, and speedily suggests to them the notion and the love of political freedom. Men living at such times have a natural bias to free institutions. Take any one of them at a venture, and search if you can his most deep-seated instincts; and you will find that, of all governments, he will soonest conceive and most highly value that government whose head he has himself elected, and whose administration he may control.”

GovernmentFreedomIndependenceEqualityWillPolitical Freedom1840
Book:Democracy in America
Create image

“In the absence of government each man learns to think, to act for himself, without counting on the support of an outside force which, however vigilant one supposes it to be, can never answer all social needs. Man, thus accustomed to seek his well-being only through his own efforts, raises himself in his own opinion as he does in the opinion of others; his soul becomes larger and stronger at the same time.”

ThinkingMenNeedsWellsDoeSoulGovernmentForceSocialAnswersEffortOpinionSupportStrongerRaisesAbsenceWell BeingAccustomedCountingVigilant
Author:Alexis de Tocqueville
Create image

“Every nation that has ended in tyranny has come to that end by way of good order. It certainly does not follow from this that peoples should scorn public peace, but neither should they be satisfied with that and nothing more. A nation that asks nothing of government but the maintenance of order is already a slave in the depths of its heart; it is a slave of its well-being, ready for the man who will put it in chains.”

MenWayShouldWellsHeartDoeEndsGovernmentOrderAsksNationsReadySlaveDepthTyrannySatisfiedChainsWell BeingScornMaintenance
Author:Alexis de Tocqueville
Create image

“Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

PeopleMindKindDoeCharacterGovernmentNationsAnimalOriginalsComplicatedSurfacePenetrateEnergeticFlocksDespotismShepherdsServitudeIndustriousDemocracy In America
Author:Alexis de Tocqueville
Create image

“Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types-religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute....At the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association.”

DifferentStatesGovernmentAgeReligiousUnitedMoralUnited StatesForeverDemocracyMinutesSeriousTypeThousandEnglandFranceStationsAssociationDispositionUndertakingsTerritorial
Book:Democracy in America
Create image

“Local assemblies of the people constitute the strength of free nations. Municipal institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science: they bring it within the people's reach, and teach them how to use and enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.”

PeopleMayUseGovernmentSchoolSpiritNationsEnjoyLibertyTeachInstitutionsLocalsPrimariesAssemblyFree GovernmentPrimary School
Book:The Republic of the United States of America: And Its Political Institutions, Reviewed and Examined
Create image

“The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is almost always an improvement on its immediate predecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform.”

FirstsMomentsGovernmentStepsTeachRevolutionCriticalImprovementDestroyedWitnessReformRegimesFirst StepsPredecessorsBad GovernmentCritical Moments
Book:The Old Regime and the French Revolution
Create image

“Even despots accept the excellence of liberty. The simple truth is that they wish to keep it for themselves and promote the idea that no one else is at all worthy of it. Thus, our opinion of liberty does not reveal our differences but the relative value which we place on our fellow man. We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.”

MenFeelsDoeIdeasCountryStatesGovernmentValuesWishDifferencesSimpleLibertyAcceptingOpinionSupportTruth IsDirectAbsolutesFellowsExcellenceConvictionWorthyProportionContemptRelativeFellow ManSimple TruthsDespotsRelative Value
Author:Alexis de Tocqueville
Create image