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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.

Alexis de Tocqueville

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
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Government Help Ideas Lose Need 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
Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Freedom Loss Material Reward
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Darkness Future Inspirational Motivational Past Spirit Walk
I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Believe Freedom Liberty Live Love Myself Time
Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Enemy Friendship Men Truth
In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Friendship Hate Politics
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Evil Freedom Goodness Love Myself Nature
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
Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Detail Government Liberty relief
There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Country Motivational Politics
Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Art Freedom Hard Wonderful
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Corruption Discovery Endurance Government Money
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Dangerous Fear Man Myself Revolution Theory
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