Quotes About Aristocracy

I don't believe any more in democracy. But I can't believe in the old sort of aristocracy, either, nor can I wish it back, splendid as it was. What I believe in is the old Homeric aristocracy, when the grandeur was inside a man, and he lived in a simple wooden house.

It may be a mere patriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that the English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown and flower of all actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as well as all the defects. It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious matters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The great and very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that nobody could possibly take it seriously.

The right constitutions, three in number- kingship, aristocracy, and polity- and the deviations from these, likewise three in number - tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, democracy from polity.

There exists a false aristocracy based on family name, property, and inherited wealth. But there likewise exists a true aristocracy based on intelligence, talent and virtue.

In England we only make films about the working class or the aristocracy.

Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.

Modern definitions of truth, such as those as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialisation as opposed to aristocracy.

I hope we shall . . . crush in [its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations.

Aristocracy and exclusiveness tend to final overthrow, in language as in politics.

London is a good fashion city. They're a little more daring. There's the element of the aristocracy, which is always interesting.

The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.

Thus our democracy was from an early period the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic.

Augustus gradually increased his powers, taking over those of the senate, the executives and the laws. The aristocracy received wealth and position in proportion to their willingness to accept slavery. The state had been transformed, and the old Roman character gone for ever. Equality among citizens was completely abandoned. All now waited on the imperial command.

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

A poet’s freedom lies precisely in the impossibility of worldly success. It is the freedom of one who knows he will never be anything but a failure in the world’s estimation, and may do as he pleases. The poet is a man on the sidelines of life, sidelined for life. He belongs to the aristocracy of the outcast, the lowest of the low, below the salt of the earth. A member of the most ancient regime in the world. One that cannot, it seems, be overthrown.

We are fast moving toward an aristocracy of health.

I distrust Great Men... I believe in aristocracy, though... Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet... They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.

An hereditary aristocracy... will change the form of our governments from the best to the worst in the world.