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Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint imposed upon her by the laws of man.

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
Nature
Avenges
Men
Constraint
Secretly
Constraints
Imposed
Laws
Law
Upon

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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.
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Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.
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Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.
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As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.
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Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.
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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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I do not find fault with equality for drawing men into the pursuit of forbidden pleasures, but for absorbing them entirely in the search for the pleasures that are permitted.
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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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Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge on its progress depends that of all the others.
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I am unaware of his plans but I shall never stop believing in them because I cannot fathom them and I prefer to mistrust my own intellectual capacities than his justice.
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We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
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By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.
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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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The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.
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One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government...is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.
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Nothing is more annoying in the ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. A foreigner will gladly agree to praise much in their country, but he would like to be allowed to criticize something, and that he is absolutely refused.
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It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in the great things than in the little ones, if it were possible to be secure of the one without the other.
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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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Democracy does not create strong ties between people. But it does make living together easier.
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The electors see their representative not only as a legislator for the state but also as the natural protector of local interests in the legislature indeed, they almost seem to think that he has a power of attorney to represent each constituent, and they trust him to be as eager in their private interests as in those of the country.
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