In aristocratic communities, the wealthy, never having experienced a condition different from their own, entertain no fear of changing it
 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1840). copy citation

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

Context

“When riches are hereditarily fixed in families, there are a great number of men who enjoy the comforts of life without feeling an exclusive taste for those comforts. The heart of man is not so much caught by the undisturbed possession of anything valuable as by the desire, as yet imperfectly satisfied, of possessing it, and by the incessant dread of losing it. In aristocratic communities, the wealthy, never having experienced a condition different from their own, entertain no fear of changing it; the existence of such conditions hardly occurs to them. The comforts of life are not to them the end of life, but simply a way of living; they regard them as existence itself—enjoyed, but scarcely thought of.” source