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

Alexis de Tocqueville

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Alexis de Tocqueville
Age: 53 †
Born: 1805
Born: July 29
Died: 1859
Died: April 16
Historian
Jurist
Philosopher
Politician
Sociologist
Writer
Paris
France
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clerel de Tocqueville
Bases
Hatred
Politician
Friendship
Almost
Hatreds
Politics
Friendships
Always
Shared
Basis

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All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.
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So many of my thoughts and feelings are shared by the English that England has turned into a second native land of the mind for me.
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He [Napoleon] was as great as a man can be without morality.
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By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.
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Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and themselves.
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When fortune has been abolished, when every profession is open to everyone, an ambitious man may think it is easy to launch himself on a great career and feel that he has been called to no common destiny. But this is a delusion which experience quickly corrects.
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The last thing abandoned by a party is its phraseology, because among political parties, as elsewhere, the vulgar make the language, and the vulgar abandon more easily the ideas that have been instilled into it than the words that it has learnt.
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I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.
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Men living in democratic times have many passions, but most of their passions either end in the love of riches, or proceed from it.
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This so-called tolerance, which, in my opinion, is nothing but a huge indifference.
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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.
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The position of the Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.
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The world belongs to those with the most energy.
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Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge on its progress depends that of all the others.
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One of the distinguishing characteristics of a democratic period is the taste that all men have for easy success and present enjoyment. This occurs in the pursuits of the intellect as well as in others.
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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.
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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?
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Slavery...dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.
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We need a new political science for a new world.
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In America a woman loses her independence for ever in the bonds of matrimony. While there is less constraint on girls there than anywhere else, a wife submits to stricter obligations. For the former, her father's house is a home of freedom and pleasure for the latter, her husband's is almost a cloister.
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