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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.

Alexis de Tocqueville

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Alexis de Tocqueville
Age: 53 †
Born: 1805
Born: July 29
Died: 1859
Died: April 16
Historian
Jurist
Philosopher
Politician
Sociologist
Writer
Paris
France
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clerel de Tocqueville
Public
Discovers
Politics
Republic
Society
Socialism
American
Endure
Money
Conservative
Political
Discovery
America
Congress
Bribery
Government
Taxes
Bribe

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Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power.
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Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind in America... In the United States... Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it.
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To commit violent and unjust acts, it is not enough for a government to have the will or even the power the habits, ideas and passions of the time must lend themselves to their committal.
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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.
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The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal, but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness.
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Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.... The subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance.
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When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
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There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
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It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in the great things than in the little ones, if it were possible to be secure of the one without the other.
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The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
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A man who raises himself by degrees to wealth and power, contracts, in the course of this protracted labor, habits of prudence and restraint which he cannot afterwards shake off. A man cannot gradually enlarge his mind as he does his house.
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On this waterlogged landscape....are scattered palaces and hovels....It is here that the human spirit becomes perfect, and at the same time brutalised, that civilisation produces its marvels and that civilised man returns to the savage.
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A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
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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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Nations are less disposed to make revolutions in proportion as personal property is augmented and distributed among them, and as the number of those possessing it is increased.
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It is indeed difficult to imagine how men who have entirely renounced the habit of managing their own affairs could be successful in choosing those who ought to lead them. It is impossible to believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever emerge from the ballots of a nation of servants.
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What is understood by republican government in the United States is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself.
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The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
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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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There is one universal law that has been formed, or at least adoptedby the majority of mankind. That law is justice. Justice forms the cornerstone of each nation's law.
Alexis de Tocqueville