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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.

Alexis de Tocqueville

The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Kind Language Man Strong Unity
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Break Democracy Old Politics See Time
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Charity Creation Establishment Live
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.”
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Equality Heart Jealous Myself Place
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
If I were asked to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Education Growth Myself Prosperity Strength Women
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
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Independent Necessary Opinion Politics relief
Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Necessary Reality Simplicity
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
Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Dangerous Employment People Violence
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
A man’s admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Company Feeling Government Himself Men
One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Absence Development Government Strength
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

End Media News Opinion Politics