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I see no clear reason why the doctrine of self-interest properly understood should turn men away from religious beliefs.

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
Religion
Morality
Away
Understood
Turn
Reason
Belief
Self
Clear
Men
Religious
Properly
Turns
Beliefs
Interest
Doctrine

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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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Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.
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Lawyers belong to the people by birth and interest, and to the aristocracy by habit and taste they may be looked upon as the connecting link of the two great classes of society.
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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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Among a democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth, every man works to earn a living, or is born of parents who have worked. The notion of labor is therefore presented to the mind, on every side, as the necessary, natural, and honest condition.
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There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
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Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
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[Liberty] considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.
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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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Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.
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Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
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The world belongs to those with the most energy.
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Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
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In democratic countries, however opulent a man is supposed to be, he is almost always discontented with his fortune, because he finds that he is less rich than his father was, and he fears that his sons will be less rich than himself.
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Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.
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As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?
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There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.
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The taste for well-being is the prominent and indelible feature of democratic times.
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