All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEWhen a large number of organs of the press come to advance along the same track, their influence becomes almost irresistible in the long term, and public opinion, struck always from the same side, ends by yielding under their blows.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
-
-
As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
Any measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
Life is to be entered upon with courage.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
This so-called tolerance, which, in my opinion, is nothing but a huge indifference.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE