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I have always noticed in politics how often men are ruined by having too good a memory.

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
Often
Good
Always
Men
Ruined
Noticed
Memory
Memories
Politics

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To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
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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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There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.
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What chiefly diverts the men of democracies from lofty ambition is not the scantiness of their fortunes, but the vehemence of the exertions they daily make to improve them.
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Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.
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Amongst democratic nations, each new generation is a new people.
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On close inspection, we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity of an absolute government.
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The will of the nation is one of those phrases most widely abused by schemers and tyrants of all ages.
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Rulers who destroy men's freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. ... They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.
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Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.
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I see no clear reason why the doctrine of self-interest properly understood should turn men away from religious beliefs.
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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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The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.
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I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad.
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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 nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be.
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The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.
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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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When, after having examined in detail the organization of the Supreme Court, one comes to consider in sum the prerogatives that have been given it, one discovers without difficulty that a more immense judicial power has never been constituted in any people.
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