Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Alexis de Tocqueville
Age: 53 †
Born: 1805
Born: July 29
Died: 1859
Died: April 16
Historian
Jurist
Philosopher
Politician
Sociologist
Writer
Paris
France
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clerel de Tocqueville
Find
Always
Things
Democratic
People
Begin
War
Difficult
Two
Ends
More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville
In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.
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
In democracies, nothing is more great or more brilliant than commerce: it attracts the attention of the public, and fills the imagination of the multitude all energetic passions are directed towards it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The foremost or indeed sole condition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality or to get men to believe you love it. Thus, the science of despotism, which was once so complex, has been simplified and reduced, as it were, to a single principle.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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
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
Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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.
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
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
He [Napoleon] was as great as a man can be without morality.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
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
