I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLELiberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
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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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The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
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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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The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
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America is a country where they have freedom of speech but everyone says the same thing.
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The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
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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 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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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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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.
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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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Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.
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Socialism is a new form of slavery.
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