Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes

It is almost never when a state of things is the most detestable that it is smashed, but when, beginning to improve, it permits men to breathe, to reflect, to communicate their thoughts with each other, and to gauge by what they already have the extent of their rights and their grievances. The weight, although less heavy, seems then all the more unbearable.

Alexis de Tocqueville

• Men
• Beginning
• Thoughts
• Breathe

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Quotes to Explore

• I can now say that the more I learnt about Islam, the more tolerant I became.

  

  Maajid Nawaz
  • Say
  • Now
  • Islam

• By the usual reckoning, the worst books make the best films.

  

  Iain Banks
  • Best
  • Books
  • Worst

• I've got a 12-year-old grandson who, when he was 3 years old, before he could say many other words, could name the different kinds of dinosaurs.

  

  Walter Cronkite
  • Different
  • Words
  • Years

• From a very young age, I wanted to get up on stage whenever I went to the theatre - the actors just seemed to be having so much fun. One of my worries about theatre, in fact, is that the actors are quite often having more fun than the audience.

  

  Olivia Williams
  • Up
  • Fun
  • Age

• I think it's the responsibility of a major opera house not only to cultivate debate and get people thinking, but also to be interfaced with things that challenge them. To challenge its audience and not just deliver things that they know, even though some of those things are wonderful.

  

  Wayne McGregor
  • People
  • Thinking
  • House

• The world is my workshop. It is not my home.

  

  Abbas Kiarostami
  • World
  • Home
  • Workshop

• Man is the unnatural animal, the rebel child of nature, and more and more does he turn himself against the harsh and fitful hand that reared him.

  

  H. G. Wells
  • Nature
  • Man
  • Hand

• Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.

  

  Baruch Spinoza
  • Idea
  • Pleasure
  • Oneself

• New ideas should confront old ideas. We must refer to the example of Europe. People have fought to make Europe what it is today. Freedom is not something that is served up on a plate.

  

  Tahar Ben Jelloun
  • People
  • Up
  • Today

• This is the voice of Vietnam Broadcasting from Hanoi, capitol of the Democratic republic of Vietnam.

  

  Hanoi Hannah
  • Voice
  • Vietnam
  • Capitol

• Because Mr. Mandela's early opponents invested so many resources into distorting the true nature of his advocacy, the singular historic moment millions now celebrate could have been tragically lost to guerrilla decontextualization.

  

  Aberjhani
  • True
  • Nature
  • Lost

• When it gets down to it, basketball is basketball.

  

  Larry Bird
  • Basketball
  • Down
  • Gets

• And not only that, I also have the MacBook Air which is really cool. Even my wife is jealous of my MacBook Air.

  

  Karl Rove
  • Wife
  • Cool
  • Air

• We no longer claim that a genuinely religious government can be democratic, but that it cannot be otherwise.

  

  Abdolkarim Soroush
  • Government
  • Religious
  • Democratic

• For the U.S., as the largest player in the global environment, unintended consequences are magnified.

  

  Ian Lustick
  • Player
  • Environment
  • Consequences

• Everybody knows that Alexander Hamilton was a founding father of the United States, a young father to be sure: only thirty at the time of the Constitutional Convention and just turned thirty-eight when he left behind his brilliant career as Secretary of the Treasury.

  

  Edmund Morgan
  • Time
  • Father
  • Career

• As far as innovation goes, I can tell you that Korean students are reluctant to step out of line. If I ask questions, nobody raises their hands - not because they don't know the answers, but because they don't want to step out of line.

  

  Dan Shechtman
  • Hands
  • Innovation
  • Step

• I've used my time at 'GH' to learn some discipline.

  

  Nathan Parsons
  • Time
  • Learn
  • Discipline

• I'm very good at daydreaming. Ask any of my schoolteachers.

  

  Bruce Dickinson Iron Maiden
  • Good

• On one hand, you've got 'decent' men, and on the other you've got neanderthal misogynist bawbags - and the middle ground is what's disappearing.

  

  Val McDermid
  • Men
  • You
  • Hand

• You want to be commander-in-chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient.

  

  Barack Obama
  • Up
  • Men
  • Women

• That was something. As opposed to nothing.

  

  Kevin Ayers

• My life has been sensationalised into a rags to riches story.

  

  Jonathan Rhys Meyers
  • Life

• It is almost never when a state of things is the most detestable that it is smashed, but when, beginning to improve, it permits men to breathe, to reflect, to communicate their thoughts with each other, and to gauge by what they already have the extent of their rights and their grievances. The weight, although less heavy, seems then all the more unbearable.

  

  Alexis de Tocqueville
  • Men
  • Beginning
  • Thoughts