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The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.
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
Raises
Frenchmen
Satisfaction
Englishman
Anxiety
Englishmen
English
Inferiors
Constantly
Beneath
Eyes
Superior
Eye
Superiors
Lowers
French
Frenchman
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Life is to be entered upon with courage.
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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.
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The taste for well-being is the prominent and indelible feature of democratic times.
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The world belongs to those with the most energy.
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Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.
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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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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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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.
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The more government takes the place of associations, the more will individuals lose the idea of forming associations and need the government to come to their help. That is a vicious circle of cause and effect.
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There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.
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[R]eligion cannot share the material strength of the rulers without being burdened with some of the animosity roused against them.
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America is great because she is good.
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Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge on its progress depends that of all the others.
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We need a new political science for a new world.
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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 most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
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I know without needing to hear the voice of the Creator that the stars trace out in space the orbits which His hand has drawn.
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In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
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The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.
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