Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes About Inequality

Quotes about: Inequality

• 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Powerful, Passion, Heart

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1839). “Democracy in America”, p.50

• 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Differences, Giving

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book Three, Chapter XVIII, 1840.

• Whatever may be the general endeavor of a community to render its members equal and alike, the personal pride of individuals will always seek to rise above the line, and to form somewhere an inequality to their own advantage.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Pride, Community, Lines

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2003). “Democracy in America”, p.551, Regnery Publishing

• If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States - that is to say, they will owe their origin not to the equality but to the inequality of conditions.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Wisdom, Race, America

  Democracy in America vol. 2, sec. 3, ch. 21 (1840) (translation by Henry Reeve)

• 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Pride, Equality, Trying

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book Three, Chapter XIV, 1840.

• 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Strong, Heart, Men

  "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume I, Chapter III, Part I, 1835.

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