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Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.
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
Habit
Usurped
Exercise
Debased
Power
Oppressive
Believe
Corrupted
Men
Illegal
Obedience
Consider
Rule
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Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint imposed upon her by the laws of man.
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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 man who submits to violence is debased by his compliance but when he submits to that right of authority which he acknowledges in a fellow creature, he rises in some measure above the person who give the command.
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The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.
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The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
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As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?
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In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
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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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Better use has been made of association and this powerful instrument of action has been applied for more varied aims in America than anywhere else in the world.
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The more alike men are, the weaker each feels in the face of all.
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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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A man's admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.
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Among the droves of men with political ambitions in the United States, I found very few with that virile candor, that manly independence of thought, that often distinguished Americans in earlier times and that is invariably the preeminent trait of great characters wherever it exists.
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Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
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Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.
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Military discipline is merely a perfection of social servitude.
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It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
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It is an axiom of political science in the United States that the sole means of neutralizing the effects of newspapers is to multiply their number.
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I have an intellectual inclination for democratic institutions, but I am instinctively an aristocrat, which means that I despise and fear the masses. I passionately love liberty, legality, the respect for rights, but not democracy....liberty is my foremost passion. That is the truth.
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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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