Generally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEI 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.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
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Everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure.
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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 last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
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There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.
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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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Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
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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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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.
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I vow that I do not hold that complete and instantaneous love for the freedom of the press that one accords to things whose nature is unqualifiedly good. I love it out of consideration for the evils it prevents much more than for the good it does.
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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.
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I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.
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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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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.
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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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