Quotes About Aristocracy

Since nature does not endow all men with equal beauty or equal intelligence, and the faculty of volition leads men to make different choices, the egalitarians propose to abolish the "unfairness" of nature and of volition, and to establish universal equality in fact - in defiance of facts. It is not equality before the law that they seek, but inequality: the establishment of an inverted social pyramid, with a new aristocracy on top - the aristocracy of non-value.

Creating senates, the French critics said, implied that there was another social order besides the people represented in the houses of representatives. [John] Adams actually agreed with that implication and argued that the aristocracy and the people had to have separate houses; this was the only way the power of the aristocracy could be contained.

Thus, experience has ever shown, that education, as well as religion, aristocracy, as well as democracy and monarchy, are, singly, totally inadequate to the business of restraining the passions of men, of preserving a steady government, and protecting the lives, liberties, and properties of the people . . . . Religion, superstition, oaths, education, laws, all give way before passions, interest, and power, which can be resisted only by passions, interest, and power.

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

The pursuit of perfection always implies a definite aristocracy, which is as much a goal of effort as a noble philosophy, an august civil polity or a great art.

Antiquity is a species of aristocracy with which it is not easy to be on visiting terms.

The high IQ has become the American equivalent of the Legion of Honor, positive proof of a child's intellectual aristocracy.... It has become more important to be a smart kid than a good kid or even a healthy kid.

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

Christians believe themselves to be the aristocracy of heaven upon earth, they are admitted to the spiritual court, while millions of men in foreign lands have never been presented. They bow their knees and say they are 'miserable sinners,' and their hearts rankle with abominable pride. Poor infatuated fools! Their servility is real and their insolence is real but their king is a phantom and their palace is a dream.

There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a Democrat like myself must admit this.

Unlike the male codfish which, suddenly finding itself the parent of three million five hundred thousand little codfish, cheerfully resolves to love them all, the British aristocracy is apt to look with a somewhat jaundiced eye on its younger sons.

there is no aristocracy of grief. Grief is a great leveler.

Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class -- whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.

Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos.

Intellect, without heart, is infinitely cruel. . . . So that, after all, the real aristocracy must be that of goodness where the intellect is directed by the heart.

The door of opportunity swings wide open in our country. Through it, in constant flow, go those who toil. America recognizes no aristocracy save those who work. The badge of service is the sole requirement for admission to the ranks of our nobility.

As much as I adore Agatha Christie - and I think people make this claim about murder mysteries in general - it's often a very conservative mode of storytelling. Usually it's the greedy, climbing, new-money slimeball who wants to take from the aristocracy.

One of the interesting things is is that Judaism was very attractive to the Roman aristocracy.