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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEGenerally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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America is a country where they have freedom of speech but everyone says the same thing.
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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 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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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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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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As for me, I am deeply a democrat; this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can’t have it both ways. Socialism is a new form of slavery.
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Life is to be entered upon with courage.
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I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.
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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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The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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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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To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
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There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
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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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Generally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex.
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The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
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Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
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The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.
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When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
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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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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 more government takes the place of associations, the more will individuals lose the idea of forming associations and need the government to come to their help. That is a vicious circle of cause and effect.
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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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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 hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.
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Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.
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