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Nothing is more annoying in the ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. A foreigner will gladly agree to praise much in their country, but he would like to be allowed to criticize something, and that he is absolutely refused.

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
Political
Patriotism
Nothing
Criticize
Irritable
Country
Allowed
Foreigner
Much
Praise
Gladly
Something
Absolutely
Foreigners
Would
Agree
Refused
Life
Americans
Intercourse
Like
Ordinary
Annoying

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He who seeks freedom for anything but freedom's self is made to be a slave.
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Despotism can do without faith but freedom cannot.
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You need not value it yourself if you do not wish to but you ought to allow it to us who do value it.
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Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
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Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.
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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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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.
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Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind in America... In the United States... Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it.
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There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
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Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years.
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In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
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Remember that life is neither pain nor pleasure it is serious business, to be entered upon with courage and in a spirit of self-sacrifice.
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Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
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The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
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To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
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In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other prohibiting him from thinking at all.
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Military discipline is merely a perfection of social servitude.
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A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just and its justice constitutes its greatness and beauty.
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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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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.
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