When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLEThe 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.
More Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
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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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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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All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.
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As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.
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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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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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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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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.
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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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Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
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When a large number of organs of the press come to advance along the same track, their influence becomes almost irresistible in the long term, and public opinion, struck always from the same side, ends by yielding under their blows.
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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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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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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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Everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE