Q0473

Alexis de Tocqueville

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

One cannot say it too often: nothing is more fruitful in wonders than the art of being free.
Thinker Alexis de Tocqueville
School Political Philosophy
Source Democracy in America
Theme Freedom
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Democracy in America, within the tradition of Political Philosophy. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of freedom, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Alexis de Tocqueville's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Alexis de Tocqueville. (n.d.). One cannot say it too often: nothing is more fruitful in wonders than the art of being free. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0473

MLA: Alexis de Tocqueville. “One cannot say it too often: nothing is….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0473.

Chicago: Alexis de Tocqueville. “One cannot say it too often: nothing is….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0473.

Same thinker

More from Alexis de Tocqueville

  1. Democratic societies have a natural taste for liberty.

All quotations by Alexis de Tocqueville

Same theme

More on freedom

  1. Extreme freedom seems to change into nothing but extreme slavery.
  2. Of things, some are in our power, and some are not.
  3. It is not things that disturb people, but their judgments about things.
  4. He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
  5. If you are distressed by anything external, it is not the thing itself that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it.

Browse the freedom theme