Quote

What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Form
Fortunes
Important
Remain
Great
Fortune
Way
Exist
Men
Democracy
Rich
Class
Hands

More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

Image
The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer without complaint, and to die singing.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
A newspaper is an adviser who does not require to be sought, but who comes of his own accord, and talks to you briefly every day of the common wealth, without distracting you from your private affairs.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
As for me, I am deeply a democrat this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can't have it both ways. Socialism is a new form of slavery.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
When the people rule, they must be rendered happy, or they will overturn the state.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Comfort becomes a goal when distinctions of rank are abolished and privileges destroyed.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
I am far from denying that newspapers in democratic countries lead citizens to do very ill-considered things in common but without newspapers there would be hardly any common action at all. So they mend many more ills than they cause.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
A man's admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
I am unaware of his plans but I shall never stop believing in them because I cannot fathom them and I prefer to mistrust my own intellectual capacities than his justice.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
[Liberty] considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
Amongst democratic nations, each new generation is a new people.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Image
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
Image
The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.
Alexis de Tocqueville