38 Quotes By Alexis de Tocqueville


Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
Alexis de Tocqueville on best

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 on business

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.
Alexis de Tocqueville on business

Life is to be entered upon with courage.
Alexis de Tocqueville on courage

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 on equality

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

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.
Alexis de Tocqueville on equality

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
Alexis de Tocqueville on faith

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

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 on freedom

No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.
Alexis de Tocqueville on freedom

When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
Alexis de Tocqueville on future

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 on government

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.
Alexis de Tocqueville on government

What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class.
Alexis de Tocqueville on great

The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.
Alexis de Tocqueville on great

He was as great as a man can be without morality.
Alexis de Tocqueville on great

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

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
Alexis de Tocqueville on history

Life is to be entered upon with courage.
Alexis de Tocqueville on life