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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.

Alexis de Tocqueville

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
I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Dignity Human Liberty Love Passion
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Country Feeling Government Men Support
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 TOCQUEVILLE

Oppression Order Present Suffering Support
The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Best Law Moral Worst
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
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Country Institution Law Moral World
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Authority Beginning Freedom Illusion Men Moral Power Rule Try
In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Friendship Hate Politics
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Believe Exercise Illegal Men Oppression Power Rule
Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Genius Greatness Herself Myself Patriot Power Right Secret Understand
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
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
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
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
Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Beginning Home Right Woman World