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In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.

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
Novel
Difficult
Ends
Part
Rebellious
Invent
Invention
Revolution

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In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.
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The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.
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Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details, which must be attended to if rules have to be adapted to different men, instead of indiscriminately subjecting all men to the same rule.
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America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement.
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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.
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No state of society or laws can render men so much alike but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose some differences between them and though different men may sometimes find it their interest to combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their pleasure.
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If I were asked ... to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
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There is no philosopher in the world so great but he believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates.
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The principle of equality does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth.
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Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.
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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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The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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Despotism may be able to do without religion, but democracy cannot.
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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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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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When the reality of power has been surrendered, it's playing a dangerous game to seek to retain the appearance of it the external aspect of vigor can sometimes support a debilitated body, but most often it manages to deal it the final blow.
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In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect, this may not prevent even the partisans of that very sect, from supporting him but if he attacks all the sects together, every one abandons him and he remains alone.
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The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is almost always an improvement on its immediate predecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform.
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If there ever are great revolutions there, they will be caused by the presence of the blacks upon American soil.
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