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When an American asks for the cooperation of his fellow citizens, it is seldom refused and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great good will.

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
Great
Seldom
Good
Fellow
Fellows
Citizens
Seen
Afforded
Asks
Spontaneously
American
Refused
Often
Cooperation

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There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.
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General ideas are no proof of the strength, but rather of the insufficiency of the human intellect.
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When none but the wealthy had watches, they were almost all very good ones few are now made which are worth much, but everybody has one in his pocket.
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If there ever are great revolutions there, they will be caused by the presence of the blacks upon American soil.
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Men seldom take the opinion of their equal, or of a man like themselves, upon trust.
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America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement.
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We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.
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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.
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The public, therefore, among a democratic people, has a singular power, which aristocratic nations cannot conceive for it does not persuade others to its beliefs, but it imposes them and makes them permeate the thinking of everyone by a sort of enormous pressure of the mind of all upon the individual intelligence.
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In democratic centuries, on the contrary, when the duties of each individual toward the species are much clearer, devotion toward one man becomes rarer: the bond of human affections is extended and loosened.
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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.
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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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You may be sure that if you succeed in bringing your audience into the presence of something that affects them, they will not care by what road you brought them there and they will never reproach you for having excited their emotions in spite of dramatic rules.
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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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Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and themselves.
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Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.
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Despotism can do without faith but freedom cannot.
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In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect, this may not prevent even the partisans of that very sect, from supporting him but if he attacks all the sects together, every one abandons him and he remains alone.
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Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
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In politics a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
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