It is AMAZING how much French political philosopher Alexis
de Tocqueville knew about America from a single visit in the early 1800’s! Here are some of his quotes:
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress
discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
-- de Tocqueville Democracy In America
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves
largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always
votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury
with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy,
always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest
civilizations has been 200 years.”
-- de Tocqueville
“America is great because she is good. If America ceases to
be good, America will cease to be great.”
-- de Tocqueville
“There are many men of principle in both parties in America,
but there is no party of principle.”
-- de Tocqueville
“Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be
equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.”
-- de Tocqueville
“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom,
socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man;
socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism
have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while
democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and
servitude.”
-- de Tocqueville
“What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority
keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead
of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such
things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path,
is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality
and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it
must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it
dies, everything must also perish? ”
-- de Tocqueville
“We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's
support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he
feels for his country.”
-- de Tocqueville
“No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a
democratic country”
-- de Tocqueville
“I have always thought that in revolutions, especially
democratic revolutions, madmen, not those so called by courtesy, but genuine
madmen, have played a very considerable political part. One thing is certain,
and that is that a condition of semi-madness is not unbecoming at such times,
and often even leads to success.”
-- de Tocqueville
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