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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEIn 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.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
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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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The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
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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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History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
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This so-called tolerance, which, in my opinion, is nothing but a huge indifference.
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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 tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
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The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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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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Life is to be entered upon with courage.
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I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support.
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When a large number of organs of the press come to advance along the same track, their influence becomes almost irresistible in the long term, and public opinion, struck always from the same side, ends by yielding under their blows.
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As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.
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There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE







