Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes (44 quotes)

Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„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.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„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.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.“
Picture of quotation author 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.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say 'Gentlemen' to the person with whom he is conversing.“
Picture of quotation author 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.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„He was as great as a man can be without morality.“
Picture of quotation author 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.“
Picture of quotation author 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.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„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.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.“
Picture of quotation author Alexis de Tocqueville
„In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.“

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Author information

Alexis de Tocqueville
Author born: July 29, 1805
Author died: April 16, 1859
Nationality: French
Author Profession: Historian

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