There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEAny 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.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
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I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.
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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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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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The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
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The most perilous moment for a bad government is when it seeks to mend its ways. Only consummate statecraft can enable a king to save his throne when, after a long spell of oppression, he sets out to improve the lot of his subjects.
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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
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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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As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.
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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.
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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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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 tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
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Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
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Life is to be entered upon with courage.
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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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A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
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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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Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
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Socialism is a new form of slavery.
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Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
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History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
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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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In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
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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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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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