Quotes About Democracy

In democratic times, enjoyment is keener than in aristocratic centuries, and above all the number of those who taste it is infinitely greater; but on the other hand, one must recognize that hopes and desires are more often disappointed, souls more arouse and more restive, and cares more burning.

Americans owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands. Thus democracy throws [a man] back forever upon himself alone, and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart.

The jury, which is the most energetic means to make the people rule, is also the most effective means to teach them to rule.

The deeper we penetrate into the working of these parties, the more do we perceive that the object of the one is to limit, and that of the other to extend, the popular authority.

If the maladministration of the democracy ever brings about a revolutionary crisis, and if monarchical institutions ever become practicable in the United States, the truth of what I advance will become obvious.

To mimic virtue is of every age; but the hypocrisy of luxury belongs more particularly to the ages of democracy.

The Americans live in a democratic state of society, which has naturally suggested to them certain laws and a certain political character. This

I observed that equality of condition, though it has not there reached the extreme limit which it seems to have attained in the United States, is constantly approaching it; and that the democracy which governs the American communities appears to be rapidly rising into power in Europe.

When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and weakness.

Democratic institutions awaken and foster a passion for equality which they can never entirely satisfy. This complete equality eludes the grasp of the people at the very moment they think they have grasped it . . . the people are excited in the pursuit of an advantage, which is more precious because it is not sufficiently remote to be unknown or sufficiently near to be enjoyed.

Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it.

Nowhere do citizens seem more insignificant than in a democratic nation.

Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of the greatest possible number; for they emanate from the majority of the citizens, who are subject to error, but who cannot have an interest opposed to their own advantage. The laws of an aristocracy tend, on the contrary, to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the minority, because an aristocracy, by its very nature, constitutes a minority.

If a democratic state of society and democratic institutions do not stop the career of the human mind, they incontestably guide it in one direction in preference to another. Their effects, thus circumscribed, are still exceedingly great; and I trust I may be pardoned if I pause for a moment to survey them. We had occasion, in speaking of the philosophical method of the American people, to make several remarks which must here be turned to account.

Democratic nations often hate those in whose hands the central power is vested; but they love that power itself.

I passionately love liberty, legality, respect for rights, but not democracy. That is what I find in the depth of my soul.

Democratic nations often hate those in whose hands the central power is vested; but they always love that power itself.

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.

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

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

In no country in the world does the law hold so absolute a language as in America, and in no country is the right of applying it vested in so many hands.

La democrazia è il potere di un popolo informato.

It appears to me beyond doubt that sooner or later we shall arrive, like the Americans, at an almost complete equality of conditions.

Democracy shuts the past against the poet, but opens the future before him.