Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes

The government is formed and the seat of power is safe.

All power is lodged in, and consequently derived from, the people. We should wear it as a breastplate, and buckle it on as our armour.

The civilized world needs to think about a decision when single politicians are not allowed to stay in power.

The Sovereign: The People

Democracy is not an end but the means to the conquest of the new state. When the time comes, either Parliament submits or we will eliminate Parliament.

Tell me if ever in history there was a government which was based exclusively upon the consent of the people, and which was ready to dispense altogether with the use of force. There has never been and never will be such a government.

We seek to restore the Government of the Republic to the hands of the ‘plain people’ with whom it originated,

The people must come first. Where they do not, sooner or later, they will overthrow their governments.

No power in the country can dissolve the government.

it is the people who control the Government, not the Government the people.

The people have to have the power: it belongs to the people.

If any form of government is capable of making a nation happy, ours I think bids fair now for producing that effect. But after all much depends upon the people who are governed.

We want the government to be controlled by all the people, not by the richest 1%. That's always been the first demand. That's a simple enough message, and I think it's pretty clear now, even though much of the media has been disingenuous in its coverage. We don't want the heads of the biggest industries to make all the decisions, because they're not for the people. They're for the corporations. Power to the people!

We have a lot of friends, but not among the governments - the friends are in the peoples. And in the last instance the peoples will be the rulers of those states.

We put our fingers in the eyes of those who doubt that Libya is ruled by anyone other than its people.

The people are the masters of the revolution in each country.

I think it's time for the Army to understand that power should be enshrined in the people if we are to be a genuine democracy and not in any particular institution or organisation.

Democracy cannot long survive when the people permit their lives to be dominated - economically or politically - by a powerful few.

The throne we honour is the people's choice.

Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty.

From Gandhi to Mandela, from the American patriot to the Polish shipbuilders, the makers of revolutions have not come from the top.

The rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people.

The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights.

Where is democratic process or popular sovereignty for the endangered population? It cannot be "given" or "allocated" by some other power without that same power claiming the right to withdraw what it gives.

The state itself becomes more and more identified with the interests of those who run things than with the interests of the people in general.