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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details, which must be attended to if rules have to be adapted to different men, instead of indiscriminately subjecting all men to the same rule.

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
Instead
Adapted
Government
Inquiry
Must
Infinity
Subjecting
Different
Central
Relieves
Every
Details
Indiscriminately
Men
Rule
Worships
Rules
Uniformity
Worship
Attended

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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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With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs.
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The character of Anglo-American civilization . . . is the product . . . of two perfectly distinct elements that elsewhere have often made war with each other, but which, in America, they have succeeded in incorporating somehow into one another and combining marvelously. I mean to speak of the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom.
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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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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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As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.
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The most durable monument of human labor is that which recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.
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The electors see their representative not only as a legislator for the state but also as the natural protector of local interests in the legislature indeed, they almost seem to think that he has a power of attorney to represent each constituent, and they trust him to be as eager in their private interests as in those of the country.
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When the people rule, they must be rendered happy, or they will overturn the state.
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Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.
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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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The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer without complaint, and to die singing.
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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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Men will not receive the truth from their enemies, and it is seldom offered to them by their friends.
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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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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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Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.
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General ideas are no proof of the strength, but rather of the insufficiency of the human intellect.
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He [Napoleon] was as great as a man can be without morality.
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The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.
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