for when the whole of society is in motion, it is difficult to keep any one class stationary; and when the greater number of men are opening new paths to fortune, it is no less difficult to make the few support in peace their wants and their desires.
 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1840). copy citation

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

Context

“This state of dependence and wretchedness, in which a part of the manufacturing population of our time lives, forms an exception to the general rule, contrary to the state of all the rest of the community; but, for this very reason, no circumstance is more important or more deserving of the especial consideration of the legislator; for when the whole of society is in motion, it is difficult to keep any one class stationary; and when the greater number of men are opening new paths to fortune, it is no less difficult to make the few support in peace their wants and their desires. Chapter VIII: Influence Of Democracy On Kindred I have just examined the changes which the equality of conditions produces in the mutual relations of the several members of the community amongst democratic nations, and amongst the Americans in particular.” source