"After having thus successively taken each member
of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will,
the supreme power 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 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." | Quote by: | Alexis de Tocqueville
[Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clerel, le Comte de Tocqueville] (1805-1859) French historian |
Source: | Democracy in America, Vol. II (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899), Chap. 6 |
| |
| |
- More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
- Books by or about Alexis de Tocqueville
- This Alexis de Tocqueville quote is found in these quote Categories:
Collectivism quotes, Conformity quotes, Freedom quotes, Government quotes, Law quotes, Oppression quotes, Power quotes, Responsibility quotes, Socialism quotes, Statism quotes, Uniformity quotes, Usurpation quotes, Utopia quotes | |
 |
More Quotations
| |
