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 TOCQUEVILLEWe 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.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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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.
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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.
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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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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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Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.
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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.
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Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
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I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.
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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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One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.
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The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
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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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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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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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When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
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