Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocquevillewas a French diplomat, political scientist, and historian. He was best known for his works Democracy in Americaand The Old Regime and the Revolution. In both he analyzed the improved living standards and social conditions of individuals, as well as their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America was published after Tocqueville's travels in the United States, and is today considered an early work of sociology and political science...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth29 July 1805
CountryFrance
home government unions
There is hardly a congressman prepared to go home until he has at least one speech printed and sent to his constituents, and he won't let anybody interrupt his harangue until he has made all his useful suggestions about the 24 states of the Union, and especially the district he represents.
government political firsts
Religion, which never intervenes directly in the government of American society, should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions
government reform moments
The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
religious government forever
Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types-religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute....At the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association.
individual-strength government development
One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government...is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.
government association france
At the head of any new undertaking where in France you would find the government, or in England some great lord, in the United States you are sure to find an association.
school government people
Local assemblies of the people constitute the strength of free nations. Municipal institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science: they bring it within the people's reach, and teach them how to use and enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.
passion government ideas
To commit violent and unjust acts, it is not enough for a government to have the will or even the power; the habits, ideas and passions of the time must lend themselves to their committal.
government circles ideas
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.
government critical-moments firsts
The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is almost always an improvement on its immediate predecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform.
government world united-states
What is understood by republican government in the United States is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself.
kings government long
The most perilous moment for a bad government is when it seeks to mend its ways. Only consummate statecraft can enable a king to save his throne when, after a long spell of oppression, he sets out to improve the lot of his subjects.
character animal government
Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise 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.
fear government long
On close inspection, we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity of an absolute government.