Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes

Nothing's as dangerous as power with impunity.

Majorities, as such, afford no guarantees for justice. They are men of the same nature as minorities. They have the same passions for fame, power, and money, as minorities; and are liable and likely to be equally - perhaps more than equally, because more boldly - rapacious, tyrannical and unprincipled, if intrusted with power.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority.

... all of our human experience shows that no one with absolute power can be trusted to give it up even in part.

Absolute power should never be trusted to man. It has perverted the wisest heads, and corrupted the best hearts in the world. I should be afraid to commit my property, liberty and life to a body of angels for one whole year.

A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired. This maxim, drawn from the experience of all ages, makes it the height of folly to intrust any set of men with power which is not under every possible control; perpetual strides are made after more as long as there is any part withheld.

Despots and democratic majorities are drunk with power.

The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that the king could do no wrong . The Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.... If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Beware the abuse of Power. Both by those we disagree with, as well as those we may agree with

Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who posses it; and this I know, my lords: that where law ends, tyranny begins.

Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.

Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.

But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

How dangerous emperors are when they go mad.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature, and that power whether vested in many or few is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, 'Give, give.'

Power is poison. Its effects on Presidents had always been tragic; chiefly as an almost insane excitement at first, and a worse reaction afterwards; but also because no mind is so well balanced as to bar the strain of seizing unlimited force without habit or knowledge of it; and finding it disputed with him by hungry packs of wolves and hounds whose lives depend on snatching the carrion.

Since the origin of the world there has never been a king—even if you were to select the very best—who did not in some measure abuse his authority…

That which killed my late master, & so many of his predecessors. The responsibility of arbitrary power.