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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEHowever 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.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
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Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
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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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Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
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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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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.
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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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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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America is a country where they have freedom of speech but everyone says the same thing.
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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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I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.
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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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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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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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