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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.

Alexis de Tocqueville

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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Evil Freedom Goodness Love Myself Nature
It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Easy Lying Simplicity Truth World
The most perilous moment for a bad government is when it seeks to mend its ways. Only consummate statecraft can enable a king to save his throne when, after a long spell of oppression, he sets out to improve the lot of his subjects.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Government Improvement Moments Oppression Seek
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Faith Goodness Keys Myself Sacrifice Support
Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Detail Government Liberty relief
All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Accomplishment Democracy Destroy Nation Peace Seek War
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

Citizenship Equality Escape Himself Pride Try
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Human Intellectual Logic Oneself Ordinary Peace Principles Weakness
Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Divine Liberty
A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Escape Government Oneself Politics
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

Country Greatness Man Religious Soul World
Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Greatness Moral
Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Necessary Reality Simplicity
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

Black Equality Greatness Presence Race Revolution
Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Enemy Friendship Men Truth
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Ignorance Luxury Men Mindset Power Pride Slave