Alexis de Tocqueville 1805 – 1859
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 – 1859) was a French philosopher of the Modern era, associated with Political Philosophy.
Alexis de Tocqueville was a French aristocrat, political philosopher, and historian. After a long study tour of the United States, undertaken nominally to examine its prison system, he produced Democracy in America, a penetrating examination of the conditions, dangers, and promise of modern democratic society. His later study The Old Regime and the Revolution argued that the French Revolution extended rather than overturned the centralizing tendencies of the monarchy. Tocqueville's analysis of equality, liberty, civil association, and the soft despotism of majority opinion remains a touchstone of political theory.
Alexis de Tocqueville was born in 1805 in Paris into a Norman aristocratic family that had suffered grievously during the Terror. He trained in law and in 1827 was appointed an unpaid magistrate at Versailles. Distrusted by the new July Monarchy after 1830 because of his legitimist family connections, he secured an official commission to study the American penal system and sailed for the United States with his friend Gustave de Beaumont in 1831, returning the following year.
The two volumes of Democracy in America (1835 and 1840) made him a European celebrity. He served in the Chamber of Deputies under the July Monarchy, in the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies of the Second Republic, and briefly as Foreign Minister in 1849, before withdrawing from public life after Louis Napoleon's coup. The first volume of his late masterwork The Old Regime and the Revolution appeared in 1856.
Tocqueville read modern history as the providential advance of equality of conditions and analyzed with unusual subtlety the institutions, civic associations, religious habits, and intellectual moods that might temper the new regime or consolidate it into a soft despotism. His writings remain a central reference for liberal political theory and the comparative study of democracy. He died at Cannes of tuberculosis in 1859.
Key facts
- Nationality
- French
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Political Philosophy
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville:
“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.”
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Attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville:
“Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.”
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“When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.”
As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity. -
“I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.”
Book Four, Chapter VII. -
“Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot.”
Chapter XVII.
Alexis de Tocqueville by topic
Frequently asked about Alexis de Tocqueville
- When did Alexis de Tocqueville live?
- Alexis de Tocqueville was born in 1805 and died in 1859.
- Where was Alexis de Tocqueville from?
- Alexis de Tocqueville was a French philosopher of the Modern era.
- What philosophical movements is Alexis de Tocqueville associated with?
- Alexis de Tocqueville was associated with Political Philosophy.
- What was Alexis de Tocqueville known for?
- Alexis de Tocqueville was a French aristocrat, political philosopher, and historian.
- How many quotes are attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville?
- There are 14 attributed quotations from Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.
Quotes that are not actually from Alexis de Tocqueville
These lines are widely circulated as Alexis de Tocqueville, but they do not appear in Alexis de Tocqueville's works. Each entry below identifies the actual source.
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“America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: According to Michael A. Ledeen, this line has been falsely attributed to Tocqueville by Dwight Eisenhower , Bill Clinton , Colin Powell , Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan . See Tocqueville on American Character (2001), p. 25 . Hillary Clinton in her acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention (July 29
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“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.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: P. J. O'Rourke , Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut (1996), p. 227.
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“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This is a variant expression of a sentiment which is often attributed to Tocqueville or Alexander Fraser Tytler , but the earliest known occurrence is as an unsourced attribution to Tytler in "This is the Hard Core of Freedom" by Elmer T. Peterson in The Daily Oklahoman (9 December 1951): "A democra
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“In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: It was Joseph de Maistre who wrote in 1811 "Every nation gets the government it deserves.
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“A decline of public morals in the United States will probably be marked by the abuse of the power of impeachment as a means of crushing political adversaries or ejecting them from office.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: It was John Innes Clark Hare in his book "American Constitutional Law - Volume 1" who claimed that this was from Toqueville in an unsourced paraphrase that started with "It was long since remarked by De Tocqueville..." Actual quote, from Toqueville's Democracy In America, Chapter VII: "When the Amer