The quotations of

Alexis de Tocqueville

French political thinker and historian, minister of Foreign Affairs

1805–1859

39 quotes, most often on America, Democracy and Freedom.

In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 96
- Politics
However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.
Nothing tends to materialize man and to deprive his work of the faintest trace of mind more than the extreme division of labor.
Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XVIII.
- Work
The great privilege of the Americans does not consist in being more enlightened than other nations, but in being able to repair the faults they may commit.
Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XIII (tr. Henry Reeve)
- America
He who seeks freedom for anything but freedom’s self is made to be a slave.
The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856), p. 204
- Freedom
I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XV.
- America
- Freedom
No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Three, Chapter XXII.
- Freedom
- War & Peace
Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.
Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XVI.
- Laws
What chiefly diverts the men of democracies from lofty ambition is not the scantiness of their fortunes, but the vehemence of the exertions they daily make to improve them.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Three, Chapter XIX.
- Democracy
- Motivation & Goals

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