# Alexis de Tocqueville

- Quotes: 89
- Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville

## Books

- [Democracy in America](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america.md) — 90 quotes

## Recently added quotes

> Translation: In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/translation-in-order.md)

> They (the emperors) frequently abused their power arbitrarily to deprive their subjects of property or of life: their tyranny was extremely onerous to the few, but it did not reach the greater number; .. But it would seem that if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild, it would degrade men without tormenting them.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/they-the-emperors.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/all-those-who.md)

> Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/every-central-government.md)

> If there ever are great revolutions there, they will be caused by the presence of the blacks upon American soil. That is to say, it will not be the equality of social conditions but rather their inequality which may give rise thereto.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/if-there-ever.md)

> I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/i-should-have.md)

> There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult—to begin a war and to end it.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/there-are-two.md)

> Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/two-things-in-america.md)

> The foremost, or indeed the sole condition which is required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community, is to love equality, or to get men to believe you love it. Thus the science of despotism, which was once so complex, is simplified, and reduced as it were to a single principle.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/the-foremost-or-indeed.md)

> When an opinion has taken root in a democracy and established itself in the minds of the majority, it afterward persists by itself, needing no effort to maintain it since no one attacks it. Those who at first rejected it as false come in the end to adopt it as accepted, and even those who still at the bottom of their hearts oppose it keep their views to themselves, taking great care to avoid a dangerous and futile contest.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/when-an-opinion.md)

> No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/no-protracted-war.md)

> I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/i-cannot-help.md)