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Of all the countries of the world America is the one where the movement of thought and human industry is the most continuous and swift.

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
Humans
Swift
Country
Continuous
World
Countries
Industry
Movement
Thought
America
Human

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In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
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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.
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Despotism may be able to do without religion, but democracy cannot.
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The foremost or indeed sole condition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality or to get men to believe you love it. Thus, the science of despotism, which was once so complex, has been simplified and reduced, as it were, to a single principle.
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Generally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex.
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I have always noticed in politics how often men are ruined by having too good a memory.
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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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The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.
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What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class.
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I am far from denying that newspapers in democratic countries lead citizens to do very ill-considered things in common but without newspapers there would be hardly any common action at all. So they mend many more ills than they cause.
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The position of the Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.
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In democratic countries as well as elsewhere most of the branches of productive industry are carried on at a small cost by men little removed by their wealth or education above the level of those whom they employ.
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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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Among the droves of men with political ambitions in the United States, I found very few with that virile candor, that manly independence of thought, that often distinguished Americans in earlier times and that is invariably the preeminent trait of great characters wherever it exists.
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The world belongs to those with the most energy.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.
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There are at the present time two great nations in the world - allude to the Russians and the Americans. All other nations seem to have nearly reached their national limits, and have only to maintain their power these alone are proceeding along a path to which no limit can be perceived.
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Military discipline is merely a perfection of social servitude.
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Comfort becomes a goal when distinctions of rank are abolished and privileges destroyed.
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In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.
Alexis de Tocqueville