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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEIt is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
-
-
Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
America is great because she is good.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
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 -
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 -
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 -
The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
America is a country where they have freedom of speech but everyone says the same thing.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
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 -
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 -
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE -
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE