Aristocracy Quotes

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

  Polybius

  Historical, Democracy, Savages

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• There is only one true aristocracy . . . and that is the aristocracy of passionate souls!

  Tennessee Williams

  Soul, Passionate

  Tennessee Williams (1994). “Collected Stories”, p.83, New Directions Publishing

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• 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.

  Frank Herbert

  Government, Class, Patterns

  Frank Herbert (2008). “Children of Dune”, p.198, Penguin

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

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mean, Government, Political

  New York Times 1 Feb. 1931, pt. 5, p. 1

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• There is... an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Ingredients, Talent

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.187, Cambridge University Press

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• Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence.

  James Bryant Conant

  Excellence, Calling, Honest

  James Bryant Conant (1942). “Our Fighting Faith: Five Addresses to College Students”, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press

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• Aristocracy is always cruel.

  Wendell Phillips

  Wendell Phillips, Lloyd Garrison William Lloyd Garrison, C C Burleigh (2007). “No Slave-Hunting in the Old Bay State: An Appeal to the People and Legislature of Massachusetts -- Including, Toussaint L'Ouverture”, p.37, Cosimo, Inc.

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• A fully equipped duke costs as much to keep up as two Dreadnoughts, and dukes are just as great a terror - and they last longer.

  David Lloyd George

  Two, Political, Cost

  Speech at Newcastle, 9 Oct. 1909, in The Times 11 Oct. 1909

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• Aristocracy has a tendency to degenerate the human species.

  Thomas Paine

  Degenerates, Tendencies, Humans

  Thomas Paine (2003). “Common Sense, The Rights of Man and Other Essential Writings of ThomasPaine”, p.196, Penguin

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• Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Law, Decree, Can Do

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook L 44, 1799.

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• The aristocrat is the democrat ripe, and gone to seed.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Gone, Democrat, Seeds

  1850 Representative Men,'Napoleon, the Man of the World'.

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• 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.

  Tom Robbins

  Names, Talent, Wealth

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates”, p.61, Bantam

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• There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Short Life, Men, Hair

  Letter to John Adams, 28 Oct. 1813

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• 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. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the money touch, but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Peace, Powerful, War

  Theodore Roosevelt (1954). “The days of Armageddon, 1900-1914”

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• I like aristocracy. I like the beauty of aristocracy. I like the hierarchical feeling.

  James Salter

  Feelings

  Interview with Thad Ziolkowski, www.interviewmagazine.com. April 1, 2013.

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• Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies.

  Joseph Goebbels

  Historical, Age

  "'Michael: ein Deutsches Schicksal in Tagebuchblättern' ('Michael: a German fate in diary notes')". Book by Joseph Goebbels, Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Franz Eher Nachf., Munich, 7th edition, 1935.

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• Lords are lordliest in their wine.

  John Milton

  Wine, Society, Lord

  'Samson Agonistes' (1671) l. 1418

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• Aristrocracy is like cheese. The older it is the higher it becomes.

  David Lloyd George

  Cheese, Higher

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• The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him is aristocracy.

  Emily Dickinson

  Spring, Food, Animal

  "The pedigree of honey" l.1 (ca. 1884)

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• Aristocracy: government by the badly educated.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Government, Educated

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• There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing.

  Josh Billings

  Intelligence, Comedy, Surprise

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• Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiority s, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third.

  Bill Vaughan

  Vanity, Age, Three

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• I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Strength, Crush, Hope

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.44, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Lawyers belong to the people by birth and interest, and to the aristocracy by habit and taste; they may be looked upon as the connecting link of the two great classes of society.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Two, Class, People

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2001). “Democracy in America”, p.123, Penguin

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• In literature as in ethics, there is danger, as well as glory, in being subtle. Aristocracy isolates us.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Literature, Ethics, Glory

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