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I cannot believe that a republic could subsist if the influence of the lawyers in public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the people.

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
Public
Business
Subsist
Cannot
Lawyers
Power
Republic
Believe
Proportion
People
Lawyer
Increase
Influence

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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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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details, which must be attended to if rules have to be adapted to different men, instead of indiscriminately subjecting all men to the same rule.
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Military discipline is merely a perfection of social servitude.
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All revolutions more or less threaten the tenure of property: but most of those who live in democratic countries are possessed of property - not only are they possessed of property but they live in the condition of men who set the greatest store upon their property.
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The civil jury is the most effective form of sovereignty of the people. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During the reigns of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and Elizabeth I (1158-1603), the civil jury did in reality save the liberties of England.
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The French constitute the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation in Europe and the best qualified in turn to become an object of admiration, hatred, pity or terror but never indifference.
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Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.
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In the United States, except for slaves, servants and the destitute fed by townships, everyone has the vote and this is an indirect contributor to law-making. Anyone wishing to attack the law is thus reduced to adopting one of two obvious courses: they must either change the nation's opinion or trample its wishes under foot.
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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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Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.
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There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.
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There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
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I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.
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The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal, but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness.
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I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.
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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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The aspect of American society is animated, because men and things are always changing but it is monotonous, because all the changes are alike.
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Among a democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth, every man works to earn a living, or is born of parents who have worked. The notion of labor is therefore presented to the mind, on every side, as the necessary, natural, and honest condition.
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Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
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Of all nations, those submit to civilization with the most difficulty which habitually live by the chase.
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