“Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.”

— Alexis De Tocqueville , book Democracy in America

Book Three, Chapter XI.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Three

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Alexis De Tocqueville 135

French political thinker and historian 1805–1859

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