"There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it."
-Alexis de Tocqueville
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"History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.“
-Alexis de Tocqueville
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"No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country."
-Alexis de Tocqueville
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"All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it."
-Alexis de Tocqueville
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"Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners."
-Alexis de Tocqueville
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"The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through."
-Alexis de Tocqueville
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"The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens."
-Alexis de Tocqueville
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"Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers."
-Carlos Fuentes
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"If I had been elected president in 1948, history would be vastly different. I believe we would have stemmed the growth of Big Government, which had begun with the New Deal and culminated with the Great Society."
-Strom Thurmond
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"For most of our history, Americans enjoyed both liberty and security from foreign threats."
-Harry Browne
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"There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history. It is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations."
-Claude Vorilhon
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"This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?"
-Azar Nafisi
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"What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because it's not profitable, and now Newt, as the highest-paid historian in American history, may be an encouragement to people to study history."
-Barney Frank
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