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I avow that I do not hold that complete and instantaneous love for the freedom of the press that one accords to things whose nature is unqualifiedly good. I love it out of consideration for the evils it prevents much more than for the good it does.

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
Good
Complete
Accords
Things
Whose
Instantaneous
Love
Hold
Prevents
Freedom
Accord
Evil
Evils
Nature
Consideration
Doe
Presses
Much
Press
Avow

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At the head of any new undertaking where in France you would find the government, or in England some great lord, in the United States you are sure to find an association.
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I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.
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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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No state of society or laws can render men so much alike but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose some differences between them and though different men may sometimes find it their interest to combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their pleasure.
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One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic.
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There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.
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Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
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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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If men are to remain civilized or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.
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The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.
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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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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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[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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All around you everything is on the move.
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We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
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Socialism is a new form of slavery.
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In democratic centuries, on the contrary, when the duties of each individual toward the species are much clearer, devotion toward one man becomes rarer: the bond of human affections is extended and loosened.
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If I were asked ... to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
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I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad.
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A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just and its justice constitutes its greatness and beauty.
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