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One of the distinguishing characteristics of a democratic period is the taste that all men have for easy success and present enjoyment. This occurs in the pursuits of the intellect as well as in others.

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
Well
Democratic
Pursuits
Men
Taste
Occurs
Present
Characteristics
Democracy
Enjoyment
Success
Pursuit
Easy
Intellect
Others
Period
Wells
Periods
Distinguishing

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Military discipline is merely a perfection of social servitude.
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The world belongs to those with the most energy.
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I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
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I know without needing to hear the voice of the Creator that the stars trace out in space the orbits which His hand has drawn.
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It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
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The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that the king could do no wrong . The Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.... If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority.
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No men are less addicted to reverie than the citizens of a democracy.
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Nations are less disposed to make revolutions in proportion as personal property is augmented and distributed among them, and as the number of those possessing it is increased.
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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 only authors whom I acknowledge as American are the journalists. They, indeed, are not great writers, but they speak the language of their countrymen, and make themselves heard by them.
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A man's admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.
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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.
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Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint imposed upon her by the laws of man.
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Freedom sees in religion the companion of its struggles and its triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, the divine source of its rights. It considers religion as the safeguard of mores and mores as the guarantee of laws and the pledge of its duration.
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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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Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.
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You may be sure that if you succeed in bringing your audience into the presence of something that affects them, they will not care by what road you brought them there and they will never reproach you for having excited their emotions in spite of dramatic rules.
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The happy and powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune.
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Men cannot abandon their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect and a sort of violent distortion of their true nature they are invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments. Unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state of mankind.
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When none but the wealthy had watches, they were almost all very good ones few are now made which are worth much, but everybody has one in his pocket.
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