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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

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
Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Detail Government Liberty relief
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Dangerous Fear Man Myself Revolution Theory
If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States – that is to say, they will owe their origin not to the equality but to the inequality of conditions.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Black Equality Greatness Presence Race Revolution
Everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Courage Energy Enough Evil Feeling
If I were asked to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Education Growth Myself Prosperity Strength Women
Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Freedom Loss Material Reward
It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Easy Lying Simplicity Truth World
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
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 TOCQUEVILLE

Citizenship Equality Escape Himself Pride Try
The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Kind Language Man Strong Unity
A man’s admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Company Feeling Government Himself Men
In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Friendship Hate Politics
Slavery…dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Ignorance Luxury Men Mindset Power Pride Slave
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Government Help Ideas Lose Need Place
History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Fake History People Reality