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As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.

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
Past
Light
Wanders
Mind
Ceased
Men
Obscurity
Wander
Throw
Upon
Future

More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville

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The last thing abandoned by a party is its phraseology, because among political parties, as elsewhere, the vulgar make the language, and the vulgar abandon more easily the ideas that have been instilled into it than the words that it has learnt.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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.
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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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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Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The Americans make associations to give entertainment, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes in this manner, they found hospitals, prisons and schools.
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The character of Anglo-American civilization . . . is the product . . . of two perfectly distinct elements that elsewhere have often made war with each other, but which, in America, they have succeeded in incorporating somehow into one another and combining marvelously. I mean to speak of the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom.
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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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There is hardly a congressman prepared to go home until he has at least one speech printed and sent to his constituents, and he won't let anybody interrupt his harangue until he has made all his useful suggestions about the 24 states of the Union, and especially the district he represents.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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When the people rule, they must be rendered happy, or they will overturn the state.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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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
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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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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The more alike men are, the weaker each feels in the face of all.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Democracy does not create strong ties between people. But it does make living together easier.
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.
Alexis de Tocqueville