Alexis de Tocqueville

It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority… averts all dangers from my path… if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life.

The Federal Constitution… disavowed beforehand the habitual use of compulsion in enforcing the decisions of the majority.

Popularity may be united with hostility to the rights of the people, and the secret slave of tyranny may be the professed lover of freedom.

The Revolution… was the result of a mature and reflecting preference for freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined craving for independence.

No sooner does a government attempt to go beyond its political sphere… than it exercises… insupportable tyranny.

The despotism of faction is not less to be dreaded than the despotism of an individual.

I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, and anti-racism.

I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce.

We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world.

I have always reacted negatively to those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others’ lives.

A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

I propose getting rid of conventional armaments and replacing them with reasonably priced hydrogen bombs that will be distributed equally throughout the world.

In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

Passivity may be the easy course, but it is hardly the honorable one.

One of the good things about the way the Gulf War ended in 1991 is, you’d see the Vietnam veterans marching with the Gulf War veterans.

You can do a lot more with weapons and politeness than just politeness.

For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.

So the fear of drugs and the fear of crime is very much stimulated by state and business propaganda. The National Justice Commission repeatedly points out that crime in the United States, while sort of high, is not off the spectrum for industrialized societies.

For submissiveness to become a reliable trait, it must be entrenched in every realm. The public are to be observers, not participants, consumers of ideology as well as products.

There is talk … of our constructing Dnieprostroy through our own means. The means needed are great, several hundred millions. Let us not get into the position of the peasant who, after accumulating a nest-egg, instead of repairing his plough and renewing his equipment, buys a gramophone and goes bankrupt.