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Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
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
Amongst
Morals
Moral
Society
Great
Profligacy
Laxity
Endangered
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The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their Nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so.
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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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We need a new political science for a new world.
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I see no clear reason why the doctrine of self-interest properly understood should turn men away from religious beliefs.
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However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.
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History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
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It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
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The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.
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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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By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.
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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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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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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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Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years.
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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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In politics a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
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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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The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet.
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As I see it, only God can be all-powerful without danger, because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. Thus there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment (p. 290).
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The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
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