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It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in the great things than in the little ones, if it were possible to be secure of the one without the other.

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
Life
Little
Especially
Enslave
Without
Ones
Inclined
Must
Dangerous
Minor
Great
Possible
Minors
Things
Freedom
Secure
Men
Less
Details
Think
Part
Forgotten
Thinking
Littles
Necessary

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everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure
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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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I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support
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Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.
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The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.
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When an American asks for the cooperation of his fellow citizens, it is seldom refused and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great good will.
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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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One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government...is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.
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All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.
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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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Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.
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In America, more than anywhere else in the world, care has been taken constantly to trace clearly distinct spheres of action for the two sexes, and both are required to keep in step, but along paths that are never the same.
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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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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.
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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 man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years.
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To get the inestimable good that freedom of the press assures one must know how to submit to the inevitable evil it gives rise to.
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