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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEThe most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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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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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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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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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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One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.
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Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: “Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.”
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I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
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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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This so-called tolerance, which, in my opinion, is nothing but a huge indifference.
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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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To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
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I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.
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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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The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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