"[Tyrannical] power is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would
be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to
prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in
perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice,
provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a
government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only
arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and
supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their
principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property,
and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care
of thinking and all the trouble of living?"
-- Alexis de Tocqueville
[Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clerel, le Comte de Tocqueville] (1805-1859) French historian
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/
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