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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.

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
Therefore
Support
State
Contempt
States
Proportion
Government
Absolutes
Country
Absolute
Feels
Conviction
Men
Direct

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Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
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No men are less addicted to reverie than the citizens of a democracy.
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Nations are less disposed to make revolutions in proportion as personal property is augmented and distributed among them, and as the number of those possessing it is increased.
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Democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom: left to themselves they will seek it, cherish it, and view any deprivation of it with regret. But for equality their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for equality in freedom and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery.
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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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The most formidable of all the ills that threaten the future of the Union arises from the presence of a black population upon its territory and in contemplating the cause of the present embarrassments, or the future dangers of the United States, the observer is invariably led to this as a primary fact.
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Despotism can do without faith but freedom cannot.
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Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.
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Men seldom take the opinion of their equal, or of a man like themselves, upon trust.
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