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?

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About Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville was a 19th-century French diplomat, political philosopher and historian. Alexis Charles Henri ClĂ©rel, comte de Tocqueville, was a French diplomat, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his works Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). Read more on Wikipedia →

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