Quotes About Democracy

Parties are an evil inherent in free governments

it is certain that democracy annoys one part of the community, and that aristocracy oppresses another part.

The nation's most powerful, intelligent, and morally responsible classes have never tried to take hold of the movement in order to guide it. Democracy has therefore been abandoned to its savage instincts.

Democracy does not confer the most skillful kind of government upon the people, but it produces that which the most skillful governments are frequently unable to awaken, namely, an all-pervading and restless activity, a superabundant force, and an energy which is inseparable from it, and which may, under favorable circumstances, beget the most amazing benefits. These are the true advantages of democracy.

I regard as impious and detestable the maxim that in matters of government the majority of a people has the right to do everything, and nevertheless I place the origin of all powers in the wishes of the majority. Am I in contradiction with myself? There exists a general law which has been made, or at least adopted not only by the majority of this or that people but by the majority of all men. This law is justice. Justice thus forms the limit to the right of each people.

Quand on compare ces vaines apparences de la liberté avec l'impuissance réelle qui y était jointe, on y découvre déjà en petit comment le gouvernement le plus absolu peut se combiner avec quelques-unes des formes de la plus extrême démocraties, de telle sorte qu'à l'oppression vienne encore s'ajouter le ridicule de n'avoir pas l'air de la voir

Aristocracy links everybody, from peasant to king, in one long chain. Democracy breaks the chain and frees each link. . . . Thus, not only does democracy make men forget their ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is forever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart

The great advantage of the Americans is, that they have arrived at a state of democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution; and that they are born equal, instead of becoming so.

Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions.

In general, democracy gives largely to the community, and very sparingly to those who govern it. The reverse is the case in aristocratic countries, where the money of the State is expended to the profit of the persons who are at the head of affairs.

I do not think that there is a single country in the world where, in proportion to the population, there are so few ignorant and, at the same time, so few educated individuals as in America.

In the United States, I am not sure that the people would return the men of superior abilities who might solicit its support, but it is certain that men of this description do not come forward.

In the United States, therefore, the mass of the institutions of the country is essentially republican; and in order permanently to destroy the laws which form the basis of the republic, it would be necessary to abolish all the laws at once.

The people never find the time or the means to devote to this work. They have always to come to hasty judgments and to latch on to the most obvious of features. As a result, charlatans of all kinds know full well the secret of pleasing the people whereas more often than not their real friends fail to do so.

Parties are a necessary evil in free governments.

The wealthy members of the community [in America] entertain a hearty distaste to the democratic institutions of their country. The populace is at once the object of their scorn and of their fears.

Rather, he accepted democracy as an objective fact and wanted to address positive and negative lessons the French people could learn from the American example. He wrote, "I sought there the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or to hope from its progress."5

Parties are a necessary evil in free governments. . . . America has . . . lost the great parties which once divided the nation; and if her happiness is considerably increased, her morality has suffered by their extinction.

The habit of inattention must be considered as the greatest bane of the democratic character

When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are conferred on any power whatever, be it called a people or a king, an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I say there is the germ of tyranny, and I seek to live elsewhere, under other laws.

It is at once necessary and desirable that the central power that directs a democratic people be active and powerful. There is no question of rendering it weak or indolent, but only of preventing it from abusing its agility and force.

I grant that the caprices of democracy are perpetual; its instruments are rude; its laws imperfect. But if it were true that soon no just medium would exist between the empire of democracy and the dominion of a single arm, should we not rather incline towards the former than submit voluntarily to the latter? And if complete equality be our fate, is it not better to be levelled by free institutions than by despotic power?

America the only country in which the starting-point of a great people has been clearly observable

The first, and in a way the only, necessary condition for arriving at centralizing public power in a democratic society is to love equality