Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes

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Alexis de Tocqueville

Profession : Historian

Birth : July 29, 1805

As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?

Alexis de Tocqueville

Life is to be entered upon with courage.

Alexis de Tocqueville

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

Alexis de Tocqueville

No state of society or laws can render men so much alike but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose some differences between them; and though different men may sometimes find it their interest to combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their pleasure.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.

Alexis de Tocqueville

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

Alexis de Tocqueville

When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

Alexis de Tocqueville

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

Alexis de Tocqueville

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.

Alexis de Tocqueville

There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

Alexis de Tocqueville

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

Alexis de Tocqueville

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.

Alexis de Tocqueville

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

Alexis de Tocqueville

We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.

Alexis de Tocqueville

It is the dissimilarities and inequalities among men which give rise to the notion of honor; as such differences become less, it grows feeble; and when they disappear, it will vanish too.

Alexis de Tocqueville

In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.

Alexis de Tocqueville