A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEEquality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: “Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.”
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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Socialism is a new form of slavery.
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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.”
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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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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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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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In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
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A man’s admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.
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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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As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.
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The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.
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If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.
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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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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.
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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.
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The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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