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 TOCQUEVILLEThose who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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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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Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
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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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Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
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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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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.
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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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