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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.

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
Voice
Orbit
Hands
Trace
Without
Drawn
Creator
Hear
Hand
Stars
Orbits
Space
Needing

More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

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I must say that I have seen Americans make great and real sacrifices to the public welfare and have noticed a hundred instances in which they hardly ever failed to lend faithful support to one another.
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By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.
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Slavery...dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.
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Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.
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In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
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Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.
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When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.
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History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery containing a host of copies and very few originals.
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In towns it is impossible to prevent men from assembling, getting excited together and forming sudden passionate resolves. Towns are like great meeting houses with all the inhabitants as members. In them the people wield immense influence over their magistrates and often carry their desires into execution without intermediaries.
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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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The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is almost always an improvement on its immediate predecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Despotism can do without faith but freedom cannot.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement.
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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Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind in America... In the United States... Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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[R]eligion cannot share the material strength of the rulers without being burdened with some of the animosity roused against them.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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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Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.
Alexis de Tocqueville