Quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville

Life is to be entered upon with courage.

Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.

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."

The principle of equality does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth.

Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.

Egotism fears its own self.

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.

Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.

Despotism can do without faith but freedom cannot.

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

[Liberty] considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.

To get the inestimable good that freedom of the press assures one must know how to submit to the inevitable evil it gives rise to.

He who seeks freedom for anything but freedom's self is made to be a slave.

The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer without complaint, and to die singing

I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it

Comfort becomes a goal when distinctions of rank are abolished and privileges destroyed.

'The will of the nation' is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age.