The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLESociety is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support.
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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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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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In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
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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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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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In 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.
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This so-called tolerance, which, in my opinion, is nothing but a huge indifference.
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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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Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
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Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.
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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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Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
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I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.
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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