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Military discipline is merely a perfection of social servitude.

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
Military
Social
Servitude
Perfection
Merely
Discipline

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In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.
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An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say 'Gentlemen' to the person with whom he is conversing.
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A great democratic revolution is taking place in our midst.
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There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.
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The Americans make associations to give entertainment, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes in this manner, they found hospitals, prisons and schools.
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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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In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
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The more I view the independence of the press in its principal effects, the more I convince myself that among the moderns the independence of the press is the capital and so to speak the constitutive element of freedom.
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The world belongs to those with the most energy.
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The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.
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Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
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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 greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.
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To commit violent and unjust acts, it is not enough for a government to have the will or even the power the habits, ideas and passions of the time must lend themselves to their committal.
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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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The taste for well-being is the prominent and indelible feature of democratic times.
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The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal, but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness.
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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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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.
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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.
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