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The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.

Alexis de Tocqueville

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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Believe Exercise Illegal Men Oppression Power Rule
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

Government Improvement Moments Oppression Seek
I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Believe Freedom Liberty Live Love Myself Time
Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Genius Greatness Herself Myself Patriot Power Right Secret Understand
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?
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Character Money Nation See Value
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Equality Himself Leadership Men Thinking
Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Enemy Friendship Men Truth
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

Ability Greatness Herself Lying Nation
Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Necessary Reality Simplicity
The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Impossible Liberty Mindset Oneself Religion
Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Art Freedom Hard Wonderful
Everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Courage Energy Enough Evil Feeling
There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Country Motivational Politics
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Accomplishment Democracy Destroy Nation Peace Seek War
Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Detail Government Liberty relief
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Human Intellectual Logic Oneself Ordinary Peace Principles Weakness