Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 259 of Vol. 1 of the 1980 Knopf edition of Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1835 Democracy in America [footnote deleted]:

If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength. For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them.