Alexis De Tocqueville Quotes

The most durable monument of human labor is that which recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.

What chiefly diverts the men of democracies from lofty ambition is not the scantiness of their fortunes, but the vehemence of the exertions they daily make to improve them.

Better use has been made of association and this powerful instrument of action has been applied for more varied aims in America than anywhere else in the world.

I considered mores to be one of the great general causes responsible for the maintenance of a democratic republic . . . the term "mores" . . . meaning . . . habits of the heart.

Religion, which never intervenes directly in the government of American society, should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions

A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just; and its justice constitutes its greatness and beauty.

So many of my thoughts and feelings are shared by the English that England has turned into a second native land of the mind for me.

There is one universal law that has been formed, or at least adoptedby the majority of mankind. That law is justice. Justice forms the cornerstone of each nation's law.

European Christianity has allowed itself to be intimately united with the powers of this world. Now that these powers are falling, it is as if it were buried under their ruins.

[R]eligion cannot share the material strength of the rulers without being burdened with some of the animosity roused against them.

It is from the midst of this putrid sewer that the greatest river of human industry springs up and carries fertility to the whole world. From this foul drain pure gold flows forth.

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

I know without needing to hear the voice of the Creator that the stars trace out in space the orbits which His hand has drawn.

The only authors whom I acknowledge as American are the journalists. They, indeed, are not great writers, but they speak the language of their countrymen, and make themselves heard by them.

Nations are less disposed to make revolutions in proportion as personal property is augmented and distributed among them, and as the number of those possessing it is increased.

Of all nations, those submit to civilization with the most difficulty which habitually live by the chase.

Nations, as well as men, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years.

A whole nation cannot rise above itself.

I passionately love liberty, legality, respect for rights, but not democracy. That is what I find in the depth of my soul.

When justice is more certain and more mild, is at the same time more efficacious.

The whole people contracts the habits and tastes of the magistrate.

Sixty years is too brief a compass for man’s imagination. The incomplete joys of this world can never satisfy his heart.

For benefits by their very greatness spotlight the difference in conditions and arouse a secret annoyance in those who profit from them. But the charm of simple good manners is almost irresistible.

Egotism fears its own self.

In America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom.

There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.

Nations as well as men require time to learn, whatever may be their intelligence or zeal.

There is a natural prejudice which prompts men to despise whomsoever has been their inferior long after he has become their equal.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democracy, from beneath which the old aristocratic colors sometimes peep.

Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them by their friends

What is called family pride is often founded on the illusion of self-love. A man wishes to perpetuate and immortalize himself.

In such an admirable position of the New World, man has no other enemy than himself.

Durability is one of the chief elements of strength. Nothing is either loved or feared but that which is likely to endure.

Slavery received, but the prejudice to which it has given birth remains stationary.

He who in given cases consents to obey his fellows with servility, and who submits his will, and even his thoughts, to their control, how can he pretend that he wishes to be free?

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot.

America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry interests, in one word, so anti-poetic, as the life of a man in the United States.

nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon precedents.

I had rather mistrust my own capacity than God's justice.

In the midst of the apparent diversity of human affairs, a certain number of primary facts may be discovered, from which all others are derived.

The only way to neutralize the effect of public journals is to multiply them indefinitely.

[Patriotism] is in itself a kind of religion: it does not reason, but it acts from the impulse of faith and sentiment.

Human understanding more easily invents new things than new words.

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

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

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.