Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLENothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
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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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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Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
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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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To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
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A man’s admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.
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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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Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
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Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
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America is a country where they have freedom of speech but everyone says the same thing.
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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.
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History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
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I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.
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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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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.
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