Democracy in America Quotes

“Germans Francis Grund, and Francis Lieber, and the Pole Adam G. de Gurowski all wrote about the striking social equality they found in America, the absence of differences in status. They all noted the American obsession with work and the restless quest for the “almighty dollar.”18”
― Alexis Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“As the American participates in all that is done in his country, he thinks himself obliged to defend whatever may be censured. For it is not only his country which is in danger or attacked upon these occasions: it is himself. The consequence is that his national pride resorts to a thousand artifices and to all petty tricks of individual vanity.

Nothing is more embarrassing in the ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. A stranger may be very well inclined to praise many of the institutions of their country, but he begs permission to blame some of the peculiarities which he observes. which is however inexorably refused.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie be not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? and what can be done with a people which is its own master, if it be not submissive to the Divinity?”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the government then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“Commerce is naturally adverse to all the violent passions; it loves to temporize, takes delight in compromise, and studiously avoids irritation. It is patient, insinuating, flexible, and never has recourse to extreme measures until obliged by the most absolute necessity. Commerce renders men independent of each other, gives them a lofty notion of their personal importance, leads them to seek to conduct their own affairs, and teaches how to conduct them well; it therefore prepares men for freedom, but preserves them from revolutions.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“The President ... may err ... Congress may decide amiss ... But if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent or bad men, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life; what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“The pursuit of wealth generally diverts men of great talents and strong passions from the pursuit of power; and it frequently happens that a man does not undertake to direct the fortunes of the state until he has shown himself incompetent to conduct his own.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish?”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“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.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“Muhammad brought down from heaven and put into the Koran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories. The Gospels, on the other hand, deal only with the general relations between man and God and between man and man. Beyond that, they teach nothing and do not oblige people to believe anything. That alone, among a thousand reasons, is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power long in ages of enlightenment and democracy, while Christianity is destined to reign in such ages, as in all others.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“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.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“The New Englander is attached to his township because it is strong and independent; he has an interest in it because he shares in its management; he loves it because he has no reason to complain of his lot; he invests his ambition and his future in it; in the restricted sphere within his scope, he learns to rule society; he gets to know those formalities without which freedom can advance only through revolutions, and becoming imbued with their spirit, develops a taste for order, understands the harmony of powers, and in the end accumulates clear, practical ideas about the nature of his duties and the extent of his rights.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“The writer’s beliefs and convictions heighten his language. In our eyes, as well as in his own, it is no longer a band of adventurers seeking their fortune beyond the seas; it is the germ of a great nation which God has placed upon a predestined shore.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“Thus, it seems to me beyond doubt that, if one section of the Union seriously decided to split off from the rest, not only could no one prevent its happening but that no one would attempt to do so. The present Union will, therefore, last only as long as all the constituent states continue to wish to belong.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“But the creation of unpaid offices is to form a class of wealthy and independent officials; that is the core of an aristocracy. If the people still retain the right to choose, the exercise of that right has inevitable limitations.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“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.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“We should not strive to resemble our fathers but should strain to achieve a type of greatness and happiness which belongs to us alone.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“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.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“In Europe, Christianity has allowed itself to be closely linked with the powers of this world. Today these powers are collapsing and it is virtually buried beneath their ruins. It has become a living body tied to the dead; if the bonds holding it were cut, it would rise again. I do not know what would have to be done to restore youthful energy to European Christianity. God alone could do this; but at least it depends upon men to leave to faith the deployment of all the strength it still has.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“American priests have realized this truth before everyone else and they allow it to guide their conduct. They saw that they had to forgo religious influence if they wished to win political power and they preferred to lose the support of authority rather than share its changing fortunes.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“As a nation assumes a democratic social state and communities lean toward a republic, it becomes increasingly dangerous to unite religion with political institutions; for the time is coming when power will pass from hand to hand, when one political theory will replace another, when men, laws, and constitutions themselves will vanish or alter daily, and that not for a limited time but continuously. Agitation and instability cling naturally to democratic republics just as immobility and somnolence are the rule in absolute monarchies.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“When a religion seeks to base its empire only upon the desire for immortality which torments every human heart equally, it can aspire to universality but, when it happens to combine with a government, it has to adopt maxims which only apply to certain nations. Therefore, by allying itself to a political power, religion increases its authority over some but loses the hope of reigning over all. As long as religion relies upon feelings which are the consolation of every suffering, it may attract the human heart to itself. When it is mixed up with the bitter passions of this world, it is sometimes forced to defend allies who have joined it through self-interest and not through love; it has to repel as enemies men who, while fighting against those allies of religion, still love religion itself. Thus, religion cannot share the material strengths of the rulers without suffering some of those animosities which the latter arouse.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“Muhammad brought down from heaven and put into the Koran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories. The Gospels, on the other hand, deal only with the general relations between man and God and between man and man. Beyond that, they teach nothing and do not oblige people to believe anything. That alone, among a thousand reasons, is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power long in ages of enlightenment and democracy.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“Nothing tends to materialize man and to deprive his work of the faintest trace of mind more than the extreme division of labor.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America

“Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic..., than in the monarchy...; and it is more needed in democratic republics than in any others.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America