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In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

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
Use
Individuals
Undertakes
Political
Thus
Forming
States
Majority
Relieved
Made
Ready
Multitude
Opinion
Multitudes
Politics
Supply
United
Necessity
Individual
Opinions

More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

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Among the droves of men with political ambitions in the United States, I found very few with that virile candor, that manly independence of thought, that often distinguished Americans in earlier times and that is invariably the preeminent trait of great characters wherever it exists.
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The last thing abandoned by a party is its phraseology, because among political parties, as elsewhere, the vulgar make the language, and the vulgar abandon more easily the ideas that have been instilled into it than the words that it has learnt.
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America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man and in his eyes what is not yet done is only what he has not attempted to do. - from Democracy in America
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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 last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
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Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.
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Useful undertakings which require sustained attention and vigorous precision in order to succeed often end up by being abandoned, for, in America, as elsewhere, the people move forward by sudden impulses and short-lived efforts.
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Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.
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The French constitute the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation in Europe and the best qualified in turn to become an object of admiration, hatred, pity or terror but never indifference.
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The will of the nation is one of those phrases most widely abused by schemers and tyrants of all ages.
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The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.
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No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.
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The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
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The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their Nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so.
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Despotism may be able to do without religion, but democracy cannot.
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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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Of all the countries of the world America is the one where the movement of thought and human industry is the most continuous and swift.
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We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
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The more I view the independence of the press in its principal effects, the more I convince myself that among the moderns the independence of the press is the capital and so to speak the constitutive element of freedom.
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The progress of democracy seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history.
Alexis de Tocqueville