Quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville

Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.

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.

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.

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 chooses to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disapprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right.

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

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

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.

Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.

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

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.

When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.

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

It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.

It is indeed difficult to imagine how men who have entirely renounced the habit of managing their own affairs could be successful in choosing those who ought to lead them. It is impossible to believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever emerge from the ballots of a nation of servants.

everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure

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

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

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.

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.

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

As I see it, only God can be all-powerful without danger, because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. Thus there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment (p. 290).

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

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.

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.