Such men are not satisfied with the pursuit of comfort; they require sumptuous depravity and splendid corruption.

The worship they pay the senses is a gorgeous one; and they seem to vie with each other in the art of degrading their own natures.
The stronger, the more famous, and the more free an aristocracy has been, the more depraved will it then become; and however brilliant may have been the lustre of its virtues, I dare predict that they will always be surpassed by the splendor of its vices.
The taste for physical gratifications leads a democratic people into no such excesses.

The love of well-being is there displayed as a tenacious, exclusive, universal passion; but its range is confined.

To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to mimic nature, to ransack the world in order to gratify the passions of a man, is not thought of: but to add a few roods of land to your field, to plant an orchard, to enlarge a dwelling, to be always making life more comfortable and convenient, to avoid trouble, and to satisfy the smallest wants without effort and almost without cost.

These are small objects, but the soul clings to them; it dwells upon them closely and day by day, till they at last shut out the rest of the world, and sometimes intervene between itself and heaven.
This, it may be said, can only be applicable to those members of the community who are in humble circumstances; wealthier individuals will display tastes akin to those which belonged to them in aristocratic ages.