Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Equality
-
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
→ -
However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.
→ -
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.
→ -
The principle of equality does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth.
→ -
There is in fact a manly and legitimate passion for equality that spurs all men to wish to be strong and esteemed. This passion tends to elevate the lesser to the rank of the greater. But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.
→ -
In America, more than anywhere else in the world, care has been taken constantly to trace clearly distinct spheres of action for the two sexes, and both are required to keep in step, but along paths that are never the same.
→ -
The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.
→ -
There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.
→ -
I know of no other country where love of money has such a grip on men's hearts or where stronger scorn is expressed for the theory of permanent equality of property
→ -
Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.... The subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance.
→ -
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."
→
Related Authors
-
Thomas Hobbes Philosopher -
Edmund Burke Statesman -
Adam Smith Philosopher -
Raymond Aron Philosopher -
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Philosopher -
Emile Durkheim Sociologist -
John Stuart Mill Philosopher -
Baron de Montesquieu Author -
Joseph de Maistre Philosopher -
Karl Marx Philosopher -
Gustave de Beaumont French Politician -
Friedrich August von Hayek Economist -
Benjamin Constant Politician -
Max Weber Sociologist -
John Locke Philosopher -
Niccolo Machiavelli Historian -
Robert D. Putnam Professor -
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Philosopher -
Plato Philosopher -
Aristotle Philosopher