History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
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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Everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure.
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The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
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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 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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Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
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The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.
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There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.
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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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To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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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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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
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