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Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

Alexis de Tocqueville

In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other prohibiting him from thinking at all.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Equality Himself Leadership Men Thinking
We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man’s support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Country Feeling Government Men Support
The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Citizenship Democracy Health Performance Quality Wisdom
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Authority Beginning Freedom Illusion Men Moral Power Rule Try
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Oppression Order Present Suffering 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
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Charity Creation Establishment Live
Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Necessary Reality Simplicity
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
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
Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Divine Liberty
Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Enemy Friendship Men Truth
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?
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Character Money Nation See Value
It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Easy Lying Simplicity Truth World
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.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Believe Exercise Illegal Men Oppression Power Rule
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Justice Kind Law Man Myself People Right Simplicity