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The most perilous moment for a bad government is when it seeks to mend its ways. Only consummate statecraft can enable a king to save his throne when, after a long spell of oppression, he sets out to improve the lot of his subjects.

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
Moment
Sets
Perilous
Moments
Oppression
Mend
Government
Improve
Throne
Long
King
Spell
Way
Save
Enable
Kings
Thrones
Subjects
Spells
Statecraft
Ways
Seeks
Consummate

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One of the distinguishing characteristics of a democratic period is the taste that all men have for easy success and present enjoyment. This occurs in the pursuits of the intellect as well as in others.
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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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In democratic countries, however opulent a man is supposed to be, he is almost always discontented with his fortune, because he finds that he is less rich than his father was, and he fears that his sons will be less rich than himself.
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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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I know without needing to hear the voice of the Creator that the stars trace out in space the orbits which His hand has drawn.
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A newspaper is an adviser who does not require to be sought, but who comes of his own accord, and talks to you briefly every day of the common wealth, without distracting you from your private affairs.
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European Christianity has allowed itself to be intimately united with the powers of this world. Now that these powers are falling, it is as if it were buried under their ruins.
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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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No state of society or laws can render men so much alike but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose some differences between them and though different men may sometimes find it their interest to combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their pleasure.
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Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.
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The man who submits to violence is debased by his compliance but when he submits to that right of authority which he acknowledges in a fellow creature, he rises in some measure above the person who give the command.
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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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In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are not disinterested, but they are gentle.
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He [Napoleon] was as great as a man can be without morality.
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You need not value it yourself if you do not wish to but you ought to allow it to us who do value it.
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Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint imposed upon her by the laws of man.
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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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To get the inestimable good that freedom of the press assures one must know how to submit to the inevitable evil it gives rise to.
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Despotism may be able to do without religion, but democracy cannot.
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I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support
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