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It is from the midst of this putrid sewer that the greatest river of human industry springs up and carries fertility to the whole world. From this foul drain pure gold flows forth.

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
Carrie
Sewers
Pure
River
Fertility
Industry
Drain
Greatest
Midst
Drains
Human
Forth
Springs
Humans
Rivers
Foul
Whole
Flow
Flows
Putrid
World
Spring
Carries
Sewer
Gold

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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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In America, more than anywhere else in the world, care has been taken constantly to trace clearly distinct spheres of action for the two sexes, and both are required to keep in step, but along paths that are never the same.
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Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power.
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What is understood by republican government in the United States is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself.
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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.
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The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.
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The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet.
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In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.
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When the people rule, they must be rendered happy, or they will overturn the state.
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Any measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class.
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I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.
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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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They all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point.
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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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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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The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.
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No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.
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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.
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The world belongs to those with the most energy.
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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