The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEIn the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
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Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.
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When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
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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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As 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?
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However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.
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One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic.
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The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
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The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
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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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In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
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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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It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
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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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To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
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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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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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In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other prohibiting him from thinking at all.
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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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The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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Everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure.
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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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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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This so-called tolerance, which, in my opinion, is nothing but a huge indifference.
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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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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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