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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
History
Reality
Many
Gallery
Copies
Originals
Pictures
Historical

More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

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On close inspection, we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity of an absolute government.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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I am unaware of his plans but I shall never stop believing in them because I cannot fathom them and I prefer to mistrust my own intellectual capacities than his justice.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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All around you everything is on the move.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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A man's admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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You need not value it yourself if you do not wish to but you ought to allow it to us who do value it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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?
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The position of the Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Among the laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it seems to me, than all the others. If men are to remain civilized or to become civilized, the art of association must develop and improve among them at the same speed as equality of conditions spreads.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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[Liberty] considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?
Alexis de Tocqueville
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They all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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All revolutions more or less threaten the tenure of property: but most of those who live in democratic countries are possessed of property - not only are they possessed of property but they live in the condition of men who set the greatest store upon their property.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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I cannot believe that a republic could subsist if the influence of the lawyers in public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the people.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The most formidable of all the ills that threaten the future of the Union arises from the presence of a black population upon its territory and in contemplating the cause of the present embarrassments, or the future dangers of the United States, the observer is invariably led to this as a primary fact.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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When, after having examined in detail the organization of the Supreme Court, one comes to consider in sum the prerogatives that have been given it, one discovers without difficulty that a more immense judicial power has never been constituted in any people.
Alexis de Tocqueville