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
For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances; what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?
In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.
I know of no other country where love of money has such a grip on men's hearts.
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies
If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.
By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs then their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society
turn against themselves and consider their hopes as having been childish--their enthusiasm and, above all, their devotion absurd.
There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.
Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.
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.
Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions because it loves moderation, delights in compromise an is most careful to avoid anger.
It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights - the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle.