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Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.

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
Freedom
Free
Learn
Use
Art
Nothing
Harder
Wonderful

More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

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The foremost or indeed sole condition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality or to get men to believe you love it. Thus, the science of despotism, which was once so complex, has been simplified and reduced, as it were, to a single principle.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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.
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Among these widely differing families of men, the first that attracts attention, the superior in intelligence, in power, and in enjoyment, is the white, or European, the MAN pre-eminently so called, below him appear the Negro and the Indian.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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All around you everything is on the move.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support
Alexis de Tocqueville
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In democratic countries as well as elsewhere most of the branches of productive industry are carried on at a small cost by men little removed by their wealth or education above the level of those whom they employ.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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As I see it, only God can be all-powerful without danger, because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. Thus there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment (p. 290).
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy those who had anything united in common terror.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The public, therefore, among a democratic people, has a singular power, which aristocratic nations cannot conceive for it does not persuade others to its beliefs, but it imposes them and makes them permeate the thinking of everyone by a sort of enormous pressure of the mind of all upon the individual intelligence.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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No men are less addicted to reverie than the citizens of a democracy.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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If I were asked ... to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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
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In America one of the first things done in a new State is to make the post go there in the forests of Michigan there is no cabin so isolated, no valley so wild, but that letters and newspapers arrive at least once a week.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their Nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so.
Alexis de Tocqueville