Elites Quotes - Page 19

• Poetry comes out of an elite experience, the experience of people whose ears are opened to the song of the universe.

  Joseph Campbell

  Song, People, Ears

  Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.107, Anchor

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• To emotionally accept impending disaster, to attain the gut-level understanding that the power elite will not respond rationally to the devastation of the ecosystem, is as difficult to accept as our own mortality. The most daunting existential struggle of our time is to ingest this awful truth-intellect ually and emotionally-and continue to resist the forces that are destroying us.

  Chris Hedges

  Struggle, Ecosystems, Understanding

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• The truth is, the liberal policies of the elite class have done little to improve the lot of those who depend so much on them. In America's black communities, where the goodies have been flowing for decades, rather than seeing improvements in terms of upward mobility, we are seeing deteriorating family structure, increases in violent crimes, growing poverty, and growing dependence. Even with such a blatant record of failure, there is slavish devotion to the elite class who continue to promise more goodies in exchange for votes.

  Benjamin Carson

  Class, America, Community

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• the Sanctuary was reserved for the rich and elite--those with fortunes, not soldiers of fortune.

  Drew Karpyshyn

  Soldier, Sanctuary, Rich

  Drew Karpyshyn (2007). “Mass Effect: Revelation”, p.140, Del Rey

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• What's wrong with being elitist if you are trying to encourage people to join the elite rather than being exclusive?

  Richard Dawkins

  People, Trying, Elitist

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• Soviet-era nostalgia has strong support among the people. But not among the elite and, in my opinion, not with the president. We are not interested in keeping remnants of the communist era alive.

  Vladislav Surkov

  Strong, People, Support

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• We are seeing the bitterness of elites who wish to lead, confronted by multitudes who do not wish to follow.

  John Leo

  Wish, Bitterness, Multitudes

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• Well, I don't think most Americans are playing the super-PAC game. I think what you have is elites on both sides playing the super-PAC game.

  Jack Abramoff

  Thinking, Games, Sides

  "Former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Part 2". "The Tavis Smiley", www.pbs.org. April 4, 2012.

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• We are the intelligent elite among animal life on earth and whatever our mistakes, [Earth] needs us. This may seem an odd statement after all that I have said about the way 20th century humans became almost a planetary disease organism. But it has taken [Earth] 2.5 billion years to evolve an animal that can think and communicate its thoughts. If we become extinct she has little chance of evolving another.

  James Lovelock

  Mistake, Taken, Animal

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• A blueprint for disaster in any society is when the elite are capable of insulating themselves.

  Jared Diamond

  Disaster, Blueprints, Capable

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• Book your life choices in advance the same way you would book flights, car rentals, hotels, and excursions. Figure out early on in your career whether you intend to be financially independent or marry a rich man, join the ranks of the professional elite or be the stay-at- home type, postpone having children or find part-time employment. Then fasten your seat belt and sit tight as you watch your trajectory veer off course.

  Veronique Vienne

  Children, Book, Independent

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• The breakup of the Soviet Union is a national tragedy on an enormous scale only the elites and nationalists of the republics gained.

  Vladimir Putin

  Breakup, Tragedy, Unions

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• ...dissent, protest, presures of a wide variety that escape elite control can modify the calculus of costs of planners, and offer a slight hope that Washington can be compelled to permit at least some steps towards "justice, freedom and democracy" within its domains.

  Noam Chomsky

  Justice, Democracy, Cost

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• Behind the honeyed but patently absurd pleas for equality is a ruthless drive for placing themselves (the elites) at the top of a new hierarchy of power.

  Murray Rothbard

  Hierarchy, Absurd, Ruthless

  Murray Rothbard (2009). “Review of Austrian Economics, Volume 8”, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• The state and its elites must be subject, in theory and in practice, to the same laws that its poorest citizens are.

  Mo Ibrahim

  Law, Practice, Citizens

  "What Africa Needs Above All: The Rule of Law" by Dr. Mo Ibrahim, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 19, 2014.

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• I think the reporter or journalist is well served by having a responsibility to the powerless, to use a much-abused cliché. The voice of the powerless is in some danger of not being heard in the elite discourses we now have in the mainstream media.

  Pankaj Mishra

  Responsibility, Thinking, Media

  Interview with Sarah Fay, staging.believermag.com. March 2007.

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• People who write about issues like poverty or terrorism are a part of the elite, and the distance between the elite and nonelite is growing very fast. You can move around the world but meet only people who speak your language, who share the same ideas, the same beliefs, and in doing so you can lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of the world does not think or believe in or speak the everyday discourse of the elite.

  Pankaj Mishra

  Distance, Believe, Moving

  Source: www.believermag.com

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• What do intellectuals and opinion makers get from big government? An increasing number of cushy jobs in the bureaucracy, or in the government-subsidized sector, staffing the welfare regulatory state, and apologizing for its policies, as well as propagandizing for them among the public. To put it bluntly, intellectuals, theorists, pundits, media elites, etc. get to live a life which they could not attain on the free market, but which they can gain at taxpayer expense.

  Murray Rothbard

  Jobs, Government, Media

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• A good career is a long-lasting career. When you're there in every competition doing a good job you're a part of an elite, and that's the most important thing.

  Blanka Vlasic

  Jobs, Careers, Long

  "Blanka Vlasic mixes mischief with medals as she aims for clean sweep". Interview with Anna Kessel, www.theguardian.com. August 1, 2010.

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• There is a lack of critical assessment of the past. But you have to understand that the current ruling elite is actually the old ruling elite. So they are incapable of a self-critical approach to the past.

  Ryszard Kapuscinski

  Past, Assessment, Self

  "An Interview with Ryszard Kapuscinski: Writing about Suffering". Interview With Thomas Wolfe, quod.lib.umich.edu. 1998.

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• Millions of public workers have become a kind of privileged new class - a new elite, who live better than their private sector counterparts. Public servants have become the public's masters. No wonder the public is upset.

  Mortimer Zuckerman

  Class, Upset, Kind

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• Think of a dinner party as a club of revolutionaries, a technocratic elite whose social interactions that night are a dry run for some future takeover of the state.

  Phillip Lopate

  Running, Party, Night

  Phillip Lopate (2004). “Getting Personal: Selected Writings”, p.146, Basic Books

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• To the reactionary ear every whispered criticism of the elite classes has always sounded like the opening shot of an uprising.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Class, Uprising, Criticism

  RICHARD HOFSTADTER (1962). “The American Political Tradition And the Men Who Made It”

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• I'm an enemy of what I call 'computer theology.' There's a class conflict out there. There's a techno-elite that lives in a different world.

  Walt Mossberg

  Technology, Class, Enemy

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• If only more of today's military personnel would realize that they are being used by the owning elite's as a publicly subsidized capitalist goon squad.

  Smedley Butler

  Military, Squad, Today

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