Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them by their friends: for this reason I have spoken it.
 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1840). copy citation

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Author Alexis de Tocqueville
Source Democracy in America
Topic truth enemies friends
Date 1840
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Henry Reeve
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/816/816-h/816-h.htm

Context

“Some readers may perhaps be astonished that—firmly persuaded as I am that the democratic revolution which we are witnessing is an irresistible fact against which it would be neither desirable nor wise to struggle—I should often have had occasion in this book to address language of such severity to those democratic communities which this revolution has brought into being. My answer is simply, that it is because I am not an adversary of democracy, that I have sought to speak of democracy in all sincerity.
Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them by their friends: for this reason I have spoken it. I was persuaded that many would take upon themselves to announce the new blessings which the principle of equality promises to mankind, but that few would dare to point out from afar the dangers with which it threatens them.” source

Meaning and analysis

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