The Alexis de Tocqueville award can refer to a number of awards named after the prominent Frenchman who wrote Democracy in America. The current known awards include:
- The Alexis de Tocqueville award awarded by the Independent Institute
- The Alexis de Tocqueville Award for Excellence in Advancement of Educational Freedom awarded by the Alliance for the Separation of School & State
- The Alexis de Tocqueville award awarded by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, an institute accused of using research to get results predefined by its sponsors.
Famous quotes containing the words alexis de tocqueville, alexis de, tocqueville and/or award:
“Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort. Do not talk to him about the interests and rights of the human race; that little private business of his for the moment absorbs all his thoughts, and he hopes that public disturbances can be put off to some other time.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“When an opinion has taken root in a democracy and established itself in the minds of the majority, it afterward persists by itself, needing no effort to maintain it since no one attacks it. Those who at first rejected it as false come in the end to adopt it as accepted, and even those who still at the bottom of their hearts oppose it keep their views to themselves, taking great care to avoid a dangerous and futile contest.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)