When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEAs one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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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.
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I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.
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If I were asked to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
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There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
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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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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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Socialism is a new form of slavery.
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The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.
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Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
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History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
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There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.
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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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Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.
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It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
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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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Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
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In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.
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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.
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