Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …
Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 267
“Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.”
Book Four, Chapter III.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Four
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Do you have more details about the quote "Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details." by Alexis De Tocqueville?
Alexis De Tocqueville135
French political thinker and historian 1805–1859Related quotes
Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer
IX. On Providence, Fate, and Fortune.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
“Uniforms ruin every character”
Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist
Sketchbook 1946-1949
George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention
Article 14
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …
Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 226
Roger Williams (theologian) (1603–1684) English Protestant theologian and founder of the colony of Providence Plantation
As quoted in The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom (1991) edited by Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr
James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)
Federalist No. 10
1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)
“Point is, that's the image of those in uniform, and it couldn't be further from the truth.”
Max Brooks book World War Z
World War Z
Context: Attack. When I first heard that word, my gut reaction was, "oh shit". Does that surprise you? Of course it does. You probably expected "the brass" to be just champing at that bit, all that blood and guts, "hold 'em by the nose while we kick 'em in the ass" crap. I don't know who created the stereotype hard-charging, dim-witted, high school football coach of a general officer. Maybe it was Hollywood, or the civilian press, or maybe we did it to ourselves, by allowing those insipid, egocentric clowns- the MacArthurs and Halseys and Curtis E. LeMays- to define our image to the rest of the country. Point is, that's the image of those in uniform, and it couldn't be further from the truth.
David Brin (1950) novelist, short story writer
A rant about stupidity... and the coming civil war... (2009)
Context: Step back for a minute and note an important piece of psychohistory — that every generation of Americans faced adversaries who called us "decadent cowards and pleasure-seeking sybarites (wimps), devoid of any of the virtues of manhood."
Elsewhere, I mark out this pattern, showing how every hostile nation, leader or meme had to invest in this story, for a simple reason. Because Americans were clearly happier, richer, smarter, more successful and far more free than anyone else. Hence, either those darned Yanks must know a better way of living (unthinkable!)... or else they must have traded something for all those surface satisfactions.
Something precious. Like their cojones. Or their souls. A devil's bargain. And hence — (our adversaries told themselves) — those pathetic American will fold up, like pansies, as soon as you give them a good push.
It is the one uniform trait shown by every* vicious, obstinate and troglodytic enemy of the American Experiment. A wish fantasy that convinced Hitler and Stalin and the others that urbanized, comfortable New Yorkers and Californians and all the rest cannot possibly have any guts, not like real men. A delusion shared by the King George, the plantation-owners, the Nazis, Soviets and so on, down to Saddam and Osama bin Laden. A delusion that our ancestors disproved time and again, decisively — though not without a lot of pain.