“The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.”

— Alexis De Tocqueville , book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XV-IXX, Chapter XVII.

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Alexis De Tocqueville 135

French political thinker and historian 1805–1859

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