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There is no philosopher in the world so great but he believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates.

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
Many
Truths
Great
Believes
Believe
Philosopher
Things
Million
World
Accepting
People
Millions
Faith
Demonstrates
Truth
Accepts

More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

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But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.... The subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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America is great because she is good.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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On this waterlogged landscape....are scattered palaces and hovels....It is here that the human spirit becomes perfect, and at the same time brutalised, that civilisation produces its marvels and that civilised man returns to the savage.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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He [Napoleon] was as great as a man can be without morality.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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There is one universal law that has been formed, or at least adoptedby the majority of mankind. That law is justice. Justice forms the cornerstone of each nation's law.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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So many of my thoughts and feelings are shared by the English that England has turned into a second native land of the mind for me.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Countries, therefore, when lawmaking falls exclusively to the lot of the poor cannot hope for much economy in public expenditure expenses will always be considerable, either because taxes cannot touch those who vote for them or because they are assessed in a way to prevent that.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquility of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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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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.
Alexis de Tocqueville