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The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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
Asks
Freedom
Born
Anything
Men
Libertarianism
Libertarian
Slave
Liberty
More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville
Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The more government takes the place of associations, the more will individuals lose the idea of forming associations and need the government to come to their help. That is a vicious circle of cause and effect.
Alexis de Tocqueville
No men are less addicted to reverie than the citizens of a democracy.
Alexis de Tocqueville
European Christianity has allowed itself to be intimately united with the powers of this world. Now that these powers are falling, it is as if it were buried under their ruins.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men and to relieve their distresses. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The most durable monument of human labor is that which recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity.
Alexis de Tocqueville
In politics a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
Alexis de Tocqueville
One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government...is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.
Alexis de Tocqueville
When an American asks for the cooperation of his fellow citizens, it is seldom refused and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great good will.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Men cannot abandon their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect and a sort of violent distortion of their true nature they are invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments. Unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state of mankind.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom: left to themselves they will seek it, cherish it, and view any deprivation of it with regret. But for equality their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for equality in freedom and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery.
Alexis de Tocqueville
It is indeed difficult to imagine how men who have entirely renounced the habit of managing their own affairs could be successful in choosing those who ought to lead them. It is impossible to believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever emerge from the ballots of a nation of servants.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
Alexis de Tocqueville
It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquility of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life.
Alexis de Tocqueville
I do not find fault with equality for drawing men into the pursuit of forbidden pleasures, but for absorbing them entirely in the search for the pleasures that are permitted.
Alexis de Tocqueville
It is far more important to resist apathy than anarchy or despotism, for apathy can give rise, almost indifferently, to either one.
Alexis de Tocqueville
In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.
Alexis de Tocqueville
