Alexis de Tocqueville

For other uses, see Tocqueville (disambiguation)

Quotations

• "We are sleeping on a volcano... A wind of revolution blows, the storm is on the horizon." (Speaking in the Chamber of Deputies, 1848, just prior to to outbreak of revolution in Europe)
• "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."
• "There are at the present time two great nations in the world—I allude to the Russians and the Americans—All other nations seem to have nearly reached their national limits, and have only to maintain their power; these alone are proceeding—along a path to which no limit can be perceived."
• "Mahommed professed to derive from Heaven, and he has inserted in the Koran, not only a body of religious doctrines, but political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and theories of science. The gospel, on the contrary, only speaks of the general relations of men to God and to each other - beyond which it inculcates and imposes no point of faith. This alone, besides a thousand other reasons, would suffice to prove that the former of these religions will never long predominate in a cultivated and democratic age, whilst the latter is destined to retain its sway at these as at all other periods."
• "The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."
• "They (the emperors) frequently abused their power arbitrarily to deprive their subjects of property or of life: their tyranny was extremely onerous to the few, but it did not reach the greater number; .. But it would seem that if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild, it would degrade men without tormenting them"
• "The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave."
• "When America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." (considered by some to be falsely attributed to him)
• "Americans are so enamoured of equality they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom."
• "The French constitute the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation in Europe and the best qualified in turn to become an object of admiration, hatred, pity or terror but never indifference."
• "A weak government is threatened most when it begins to reform."
• "The principal cause of disparities in the fortunes of men is intelligence."