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The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.
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
Chance
American
Rebellious
America
Passed
Whole
Revolutionary
Life
Crisis
Like
Battle
Game
Games
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The taste for well-being is the prominent and indelible feature of democratic times.
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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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The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.
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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 territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men and to relieve their distresses. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public.
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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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No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.
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Among these widely differing families of men, the first that attracts attention, the superior in intelligence, in power, and in enjoyment, is the white, or European, the MAN pre-eminently so called, below him appear the Negro and the Indian.
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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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The most perilous moment for a bad government is when it seeks to mend its ways. Only consummate statecraft can enable a king to save his throne when, after a long spell of oppression, he sets out to improve the lot of his subjects.
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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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A long war almost always places nations in this sad alternative: that their defeat delivers them to destruction and their triumph to despotism.
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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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Remember that life is neither pain nor pleasure it is serious business, to be entered upon with courage and in a spirit of self-sacrifice.
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The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
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Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.
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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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The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.
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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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Can it be believed that the democracy, which has overthrown the feudal system and vanquished kings, will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists?
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