Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59,) fully Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clérel de Tocqueville, was a French diplomat, sociologist, political philosopher, and historian. He profoundly shaped debates about liberalism and equality in the nineteenth century, mainly through his study of American democracy. Tocqueville was rediscovered in the twentieth century as a prophetic critic of state power, and he remains one of the leading influences on democratic theory.
Born in an aristocratic family in Paris, he was called to the Bar in 1825 and became an assistant-magistrate at Versailles. In 1831, he was sent by the French government to the USA to report on the penal system, and on his return published a sweeping study of U.S. political and social institutions, De la démocratie en Amerique (1835–40, 4 vols.; Democracy in America.) The book immediately found a broad readership and became one of the most influential political writings of the 19th century. It remains one of the excellent European commentaries on U.S. politics and society.
Tocqueville became a member of the Chamber of Deputies (1839,) and, in 1849, was vice-president of the Assembly, and briefly Minister of Foreign Affairs.
After Napoleon III’s coup d’état, Tocqueville retired to his estate, where he wrote the first volume of L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution (1856; The Old Regime and the Revolution,) but he died before another volume could be completed.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Alexis de Tocqueville
Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Morality
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. Trade makes men independent of one another and gives them a high idea of their personal importance: it leads them to want to manage their own affairs and teaches them to succeed therein. Hence it makes them inclined to liberty but disinclined to revolution.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
In some countries a power exists which, though it is in a degree foreign to the social body, directs it, and forces it to pursue a certain track. In others the ruling force is divided, being partly within and partly without the ranks of the people. But nothing of the kind is to be seen in the United States; there society governs itself for itself. All power centers in its bosom, and scarcely an individual is to be met with who would venture to conceive or, still less, to express the idea of seeking it elsewhere. The nation participates in the making of its laws by the choice of its legislators, and in the execution of them by the choice of the agents of the executive government; it may almost be said to govern itself, so feeble and so restricted is the share left to the administration, so little . do the authorities forget their popular origin and the power from which they emanate. The people reign in the American political world as the Deity does in the universe. They are the cause and the aim of all things; everything comes from them, and everything is absorbed in them.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Power
The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Words
It is the dissimilarities and inequalities among men which give rise to the notion of honor; as such differences become less, it grows feeble; and when they disappear, it will vanish too.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Honor
The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer without complaint, and to die singing
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Singing
An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say “Gentlemen” to the person with whom he is conversing.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Conversation
In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Property
I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Religion
There are two things which will always be very difficult for a democratic nation: to start a war and to end it.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: War
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
Topics: Business, Action
The man who submits to violence is debased by his compliance; but when he submits to that right of authority which he acknowledges in a fellow creature, he rises in some measure above the person who give the command.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Authority
As a general truth, nothing is more opposed to the well-being and freedom of men, than vast empires.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
The progress of democracy seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Democracy
Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Government
Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Management
Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Fortune, Chance, Luck
From the time when the exercise of the intellect became the source of strength and wealth, every addition to science, every fresh truth, and every new idea became a germ of power placed within reach of the people.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: People
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Equality
It is impossible to destroy men with more respect for the laws of humanity.
—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
Topics: Faith
The political parties that I would call great, are those which cling more to principles than to consequences; to general, and not to special cases; to ideas, and not to men.—Such parties are usually distinguished by a nobler character, more generous passions, more genuine convictions, and a more bold and open conduct than others.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Party
The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Language
In America one of the first things done in a new State is to make the post go there; in the forests of Michigan there is no cabin so isolated, no valley so wild, but that letters and newspapers arrive at least once a week.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: America
The equality of conditions is more complete in the Christian countries of the present day, than it has been, at any time, or in any part of the world.—Its gradual development is a providential fact, and it possesses all the characteristics of a divine decree; it is universal, it is durable, and it constantly eludes all human interference; and all events, as well as all men, contribute to its progress.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Equality
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.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Religion
When an opinion has taken root in a democracy and established itself in the minds of the majority, if afterward persists by itself, needing no effort to maintain it since no one attacks it. Those who at first rejected it as false come in the end to adopt it as accepted, and even those who still at the bottom of their hearts oppose it keep their views to themselves, taking great care to avoid a dangerous and futile contest.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: Religion
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
Topics: Christianity, Liberty
Local assemblies of the people con stitute the strength of free nations.—Municipal institutions are to liberty, what primary schools are to science: they bring it within the people’s reach, and teach them how to use and enjoy it—A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
Topics: People
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