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In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other prohibiting him from thinking at all.

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
Two
Discern
Every
Leading
Mind
Tendencies
Men
Equality
Thinking
Clearly
Principle
Thoughts
Untried
Principles
Prohibiting

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In towns it is impossible to prevent men from assembling, getting excited together and forming sudden passionate resolves. Towns are like great meeting houses with all the inhabitants as members. In them the people wield immense influence over their magistrates and often carry their desires into execution without intermediaries.
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It is from the midst of this putrid sewer that the greatest river of human industry springs up and carries fertility to the whole world. From this foul drain pure gold flows forth.
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We need a new political science for a new world.
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Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.
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A man who raises himself by degrees to wealth and power, contracts, in the course of this protracted labor, habits of prudence and restraint which he cannot afterwards shake off. A man cannot gradually enlarge his mind as he does his house.
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Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.
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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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In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
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But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.
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The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.
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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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Comfort becomes a goal when distinctions of rank are abolished and privileges destroyed.
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When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.
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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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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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Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power.
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When fortune has been abolished, when every profession is open to everyone, an ambitious man may think it is easy to launch himself on a great career and feel that he has been called to no common destiny. But this is a delusion which experience quickly corrects.
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It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life.
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Men seldom take the opinion of their equal, or of a man like themselves, upon trust.
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