Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEI have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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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.
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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.
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When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.
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The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
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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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This so-called tolerance, which, in my opinion, is nothing but a huge indifference.
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The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.
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We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man’s support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.
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The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.
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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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There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.
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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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Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.
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America is great because she is good.
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A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
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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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I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
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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.
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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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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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Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
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As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?
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Socialism is a new form of slavery.
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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 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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To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
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