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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.

Alexis de Tocqueville

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?
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Character Money Nation See Value
This so-called tolerance, which, in my opinion, is nothing but a huge indifference.
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Difference Myself Opinion Tolerance
I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
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Country Freedom Independence Mindset Myself Reality
Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.
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Oppression Order Present Suffering Support
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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Believe Exercise Illegal Men Oppression Power Rule
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.
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Genius Greatness Herself Myself Patriot Power Right Secret Understand
If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.
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Existence Himself Oneself
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.
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Corruption Discovery Endurance Government Money
History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
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Fake History People Reality
Rulers who destroy men’s freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. … They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.
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Authority Beginning Freedom Illusion Men Moral Power Rule Try
The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.
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Best Law Moral Worst
The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.
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Ability Greatness Herself Lying Nation
One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.
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Absence Development Government Strength
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.
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Human Intellectual Logic Oneself Ordinary Peace Principles Weakness
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
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Darkness Future Inspirational Motivational Past Spirit Walk
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