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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
Good
Fellow
Fellows
Citizens
Seen
Afforded
Asks
Spontaneously
American
Refused
Often
Cooperation
Great
Seldom
More quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville
The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it.
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Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.
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With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs.
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The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.
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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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The most durable monument of human labor is that which recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.
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One has freedom as the principal means of action the other has servitude. Their . . . paths [are] diverse nevertheless, each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world.
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It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquility of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life.
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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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Life is to be entered upon with courage.
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In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.
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America is a country where they have freedom of speech but everyone says the same thing.
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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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However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.
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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 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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The evil which one suffers patiently as inevitable seems insupportable as soon as he conceives the idea of escaping from it.
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Can it be believed that the democracy, which has overthrown the feudal system and vanquished kings, will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists?
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If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.
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Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.
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