It is not always by going from bad to worse that a society falls into revolution... The… — Alexis de Tocqueville
It is not always by going from bad to worse that a society falls into revolution... The social order destroyed by a revolution is almost always better than that which immediately preceded it, and experience shows that the most dangerous moment for a bad government is generally that in which it sets about reform.
In the original French
Le régime qu'une révolution détruit vaut presque toujours mieux que celui qui l'avait immédiatement précédé, et l'expérience apprend que le moment le plus dangereux pour un mauvais gouvernement est d'ordinaire celui où il commence à se réformer.
The Ancien Regime and the Revolution · 1856
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Current citation
Tocqueville, Alexis De. The Ancien Regime and the Revolution, translated by Gerald Bevan. Penguin Classics, 2008, bk. 3, ch. 4.
Original citation
Tocqueville, Alexis De. L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution [The Ancien Régime and the Revolution]. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856, bk. 3, ch. 4.