Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes - Page 6

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

To commit violent and unjust acts, it is not enough for a government to have the will or even the power; the habits, ideas and passions of the time must lend themselves to their committal.

It is far more important to resist apathy than anarchy or despotism, for apathy can give rise, almost indifferently, to either one.

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.

Men living in democratic times have many passions, but most of their passions either end in the love of riches, or proceed from it.

Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.

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.

It is above all in the present democratic age that the true friends of liberty and human grandeur must remain constantly vigilant and ready to prevent the social power from lightly sacrificing the particular rights of a few individuals to the general execution of its designs. In such times there is no citizen so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed, and there are no individual rights so unimportant that they can be sacrificed to arbitrariness with impunity.

I questioned the faithful of all communions; I particularly sought the society of clergymen, who are the depositories of the various creeds and have a personal interest in their survival ... all thought the main reason for the quiet sway of religion over their country was the complete separation of church and state. I have no hesitation in stating that throughout my stay in America I met nobody, lay or cleric, who did not agree about that.

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.

We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.

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

The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.

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

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

The Americans make associations to give entertainment, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner, they found hospitals, prisons and schools.

I do not find fault with equality for drawing men into the pursuit of forbidden pleasures, but for absorbing them entirely in the search for the pleasures that are permitted.

I have no hesitation in saying that although the American woman never leaves her domestic sphere and is in some respects very dependent within it, nowhere does she enjoy a higher station. And if anyone asks me what I think the chief cause of the extraordinary prosperity and growing power of this nation, I should answer that it is due to the superiority of their women.

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

I have always thought it rather interesting to follow the involuntary movements of fear in clever people. Fools coarsely display their cowardice in all its nakedness, but the others are able to cover it with a veil so delicate, so daintily woven with small plausible lies, that there is some pleasure to be found in contemplating this ingenious work of the human intelligence.

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

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.

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

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.

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