Quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville

Every year, therefore, the inequality of taxation separated classes and isolated individuals more deeply than ever before. From the moment when taxation had as its purpose, not to strike those most capable of paying, but those least capable of defending themselves against it, the monstrous consequence of sparing the rich and burdening the poor was inevitable.

Variety is disappearing from the human race; the same ways of acting, thinking, and feeling are to be met with all over the world.

There is no Indian so wretched as not to retain under his hut of bark a lofty idea of his personal worth;

Dans l'un et l'autre de ces pays, on arrive par des causes différentes à ce résultat, que c'est la partie la plus généreuse, la plus active, la plus industrieuse de la nation, qui consacre ses secours à fournir de quoi vivre à ceux qui ne font rien ou font un mauvais usage de leur travail.

The Le Havre, the ship carrying Tocqueville and Beaumont, arrived in the United States, in Newport, Rhode Island, on May 10, 1831. The following day they took a steamship to New York City.

The two chief weapons which parties use in order to obtain success are the newspapers and public associations.

We have not to seek to make ourselves like our progenitors, but to strive to work out that species of greatness and happiness which is our own.

All men being equally weak, each would feel equally in need of his fellow man's support and, knowing that cooperation was the condition of that support, would readily see that his private interest was subsumed in the general interest.

While the natural instincts of democracy persuade the people to remove distinguished men from power, the latter are guided by no less an instinct to distance themselves from a political career, where it is so difficult for them to retain their complete autonomy or to make any progress without cheapening themselves.

The man who in given cases consents to obey his fellows with servility, and who submits his activity and even his opinions to their control, can have no claim to rank as a free citizen.

according to the economists, the function of the state was not merely one of ruling the nation, but also that of recasting it in a given mold, of shaping the mentality of the population as a whole in accordance with a predetermined model and instilling the ideas and sentiments they thought desirable into the minds of all.

I soon perceived that the influence of this fact

Plus une société est riche, industrieuse, prospère, plus les jouissances du plus grand nombre deviennent variées et permanentes; plus elles sont variées et permanentes, plus elles s'assimilent par l'usage et l'exemple à de véritables besoins. L'homme civilisé est donc infiniment plus exposé aux vicissitudes de la destinée que l'homme sauvage.

In order that society should exist, and a fortiori, that a society should prosper, it is required that all the minds of the citizens should be rallied and held together by certain predominant ideas...

Le suffrage universel ne me fait pas peur, les gens voteront comme on leur dira

At periods of equality men have no faith in one another, by reason of their common resemblance; but this very resemblance gives them almost unbounded confidence in the judgment of the public; for it would not seem probable, as they are all endowed with equal means of judging, but that the greater truth should go with the greater number.

At each instant citizens fall under the control of the public administration; they are brought insensibly and almost without their knowing it to sacrifice new parts of their individual independence to it every day, and the same men who from time to time overturn a throne and ride roughshod over kings bend more and more without resistance to the slightest will of a clerk.

Reste donc la charité particulière; celle là ne saurait produire que des effets utiles. Sa faiblesse même garantit contre ses dangers; elle soulage beaucoup de misères et n'en fait point naître.

When hereditary wealth, the privileges of rank, and the prerogatives of birth have ceased to be, and when every man derives his strength from himself alone, it becomes evident that the chief cause of disparity between the fortunes of men is the mind.

The despotism of public opinion, the tyranny of majorities, the absence of intellectual freedom which seemed to him to degrade administration and bring statesmanship, learning, and literature to the level of the lowest, are no longer considered. The violence of party spirit has been mitigated, and the judgment of the wise is not subordinated to the prejudices of the ignorant. Other dangers have come.

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

In the United States the most able men are rarely placed at the head of affairs

Equality sets men apart and weakens them; but the press places a powerful weapon within every man's reach, which the weakest and loneliest of them all may use. Equality deprives a man of the support of his connections; but the press enables him to summon all his fellow-countrymen and all his fellow-men to his assistance. Printing has accelerated the progress of equality, and it is also one of its best correctives.

The revolution of the United States was the result of a mature and dignified taste for freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined craving for independence. It contracted no alliance with the turbulent passions of anarchy; but its course was marked, on the contrary, by an attachment to whatever was lawful and orderly.