Tocqueville, Alexis de -- Democracy in America, Part 2, ch. 14 (1835) [tr. Goldhammer (2004)]

Dave — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 23:02:27 +0000

I am quite prepared to concede that public peace is a great good, yet I do not want to forget that every nation that has ended in tyranny has come to that end by way of good order. It certainly does not follow from this that peoples should scorn public peace, but neither should they be satisfied with that and nothing more. A nation that asks nothing of government but the maintenance of order is already a slave in the depths of its heart; it is a slave of its well-being, ready for the man who will put it in chains.

[Je conviendrai sans peine que la paix publique est un grand bien; mais je ne veux pas oublier cependant que c’est à travers le bon ordre que tous les peuples sont arrivés à la tyrannie. Il ne s’ensuit pas assurément que les peuples doivent mépriser la paix publique; mais il ne faut pas qu’elle leur suffise. Une nation qui ne demande à son gouvernement que le maintien de l’ordre est déjà esclave au fond du cœur; elle est esclave de son bien-être, et l’homme qui doit l’enchaîner peut paraître.]

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Democracy in America, Part 2, ch. 14 (1835) [tr. Goldhammer (2004)]

(Source (French)). Another translation:

I readily admit that public tranquility is a great good; but at the same time I cannot forget that all nations have been enslaved by being kept in good order. Certainly it is not to be inferred that nations ought to despise public tranquility; but that state ought not to content them. A nation which asks nothing of its government but the maintenance of order is already a slave at heart, -- the slave of its own well-being, awaiting but the hand that will bind it.
[tr. Reeve (1835)]

Byron, George Gordon, Lord -- Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 4, st. 108 (1818)

Dave — Mon, 05 May 2025 22:57:43 +0000

There is the moral of all human tales;
‘Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,
First Freedom, and then Glory — when that fails,
Wealth — Vice — Corruption, — Barbarism at last.

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824) English poet
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 4, st. 108 (1818)

WIST Quotations

Tocqueville, Alexis de -- Democracy in America, Part 2, ch. 14 (1835) [tr. Goldhammer (2004)]

Byron, George Gordon, Lord -- Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 4, st. 108 (1818)