I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLESocialism is a new form of slavery.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.
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In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other prohibiting him from thinking at all.
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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.
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One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic.
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In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
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Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
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Rulers who destroy men’s freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. … They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.
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The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.
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Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.
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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.”
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Slavery…dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.
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If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.
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Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.
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I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.
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There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.
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America is a country where they have freedom of speech but everyone says the same thing.
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To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
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I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.
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The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
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When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
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Any measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class.
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Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
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One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.
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Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
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I vow that I do not hold that complete and instantaneous love for the freedom of the press that one accords to things whose nature is unqualifiedly good. I love it out of consideration for the evils it prevents much more than for the good it does.
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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.
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