As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEAny measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class.
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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Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
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It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
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Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: “Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.”
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The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.
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A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
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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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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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Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
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Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.
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Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.
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As for me, I am deeply a democrat; this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can’t have it both ways. Socialism is a new form of slavery.
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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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The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
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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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Any measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class.
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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.
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The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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Life is to be entered upon with courage.
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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.
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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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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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America is a country where they have freedom of speech but everyone says the same thing.
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This so-called tolerance, which, in my opinion, is nothing but a huge indifference.
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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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