Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLENot until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
-
-
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
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 -
The more government takes the place of associations, the more will individuals lose the idea of forming associations and need the government to come to their help. That is a vicious circle of cause and effect.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
Slavery…dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
I vow that I do not hold that complete and instantaneous love for the freedom of the press that one accords to things whose nature is unqualifiedly good. I love it out of consideration for the evils it prevents much more than for the good it does.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.
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 -
Socialism is a new form of slavery.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
Life is to be entered upon with courage.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
Rulers who destroy men’s freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. … They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.
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







