“The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.”
More from Tocqueville on Politics
“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.”
“In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.”
“A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.”
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
Others on Politics
Otto von Bismarck
9 quotes“Political judgment is the ability to hear the distant hoofbeats of the horse of history.”
Charles de Gaulle
6 quotes“In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.”
H. L. Mencken
6 quotes“A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”
Ronald Reagan
6 quotes“Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.”
Henry Adams
4 quotes“Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.”
Margaret Thatcher
4 quotes“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.”
George Orwell
4 quotes“Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.”
FDR
3 quotes“Presidents are selected, not elected.”
Hamilton
2 quotes“Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by t...”
Noam Chomsky
2 quotes“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”
Theodore Roosevelt
2 quotes“The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.”
Ken Follett
2 quotes“Americans talked about voters the same way Russians talked about Stalin. They had to be obeyed.”