black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.

Alexis de Tocqueville

The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Beginning Dangerous Government Moments
I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Dignity Human Liberty Love Passion
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Democracy Difference Equality Liberty Patriotic Seek Service
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
To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Goodness Service Silence
The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Best Law Moral Worst
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
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
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
Life is to be entered upon with courage.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Courage Inspirational Life One Liner
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
There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Country Institution Law Moral World
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Faith Goodness Keys Myself Sacrifice Support
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
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
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Corruption Discovery Endurance Government Money