9 Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes on Power

Alexis de Tocqueville quotes on power

20. 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.

39. He was as great as a man can be without morality.

70. 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.

73. The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other

87. The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.

89. The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.

93. 'The will of the nation' is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age.

95. There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

110. With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs.