Aristocracy Quotations

We stand a better chance with aristocracy, whether hereditary or elective, than with monarchy.

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

I hate the noise and hurry inseparable from great Estates and Titles, and look upon both as blessings that ought only to be given to fools, for 'Tis only to them that they are blessings.

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

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

A superfluity of wealth, and a train of domestic slaves, naturally banish a sense of general liberty, and nourish the seeds of that kind of independence that usually terminates in aristocracy.

Time extracts various values from a painter's work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture has to give, the greater it is.

Now people want what the movie was about, which is violent comedy. And that's really what The Aristocrats is based on - what will a family do out of desperation.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.

Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.

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.

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

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

Capitalism has its weaknesses. But it is capitalism that ended the stranglehold of the hereditary aristocracies, raised the standard of living for most of the world and enabled the emancipation of women.

I'm proud of being British, but I think our aristocracy is overrated.

Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.

If a [democratic] society displays less brilliance than an aristocracy, there will also be less wretchedness; pleasures will be less outrageous and wellbeing will be shared by all; the sciences will be on a smaller scale but ignorance will be less common; opinions will be less vigorous and habits gentler; you will notice more vices and fewer crimes.

In an autocracy, one person has his way; in an aristocracy, a few people have their way; in a democracy, no one has his way.

The faith in reason insists that the poverty of democracy offers a greater hope for mankind than the prosperity that attaches itself to aristocracy or despotism.

Here in England the welfare of the State depends on the conduct of our aristocracy.

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

Sometimes it seems that we might have been happier if we had once had an aristocracy to blame everything on.

There is an aristocracy of the sensitive. They represent the true human tradition of permanent victory over cruelty and chaos.

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

The only true aristocracy is that of consciousness.

I don't campaign for the end of the aristocracy or the upper classes; I don't really want to destroy anything at all. I just want more plurality.

Anyone who lives like a modern aristocracy, the last thing they exhibit is a sense of gratitude. Me, Im very fortunate.

Where position is felt to be a birthright, generosity is possible (though not guaranteed); flexibility is not inhibited by a commitment to perpetual success.

The protection of the masses has in all times been the pretense of tyranny - the plea of monarchy, of aristocracy, of special privilege of every kind. The slave owners justified slavery as protecting the slaves.

Wherever the appearance of a conventional aristocracy exists in America, it must arise from wealth, as it cannot from birth. An aristocracy of mere wealth is vulgar everywhere. In a republic, it is vulgar in the extreme.

Isn't it true that every aristocrat wants to die?

Bohemia is a commune in which the Revolution is over and everyone is a member of the aristocracy

Birth means nothing where there is no virtue.

What a terrible thing to be a great lord, yet a wicked man.

Aristocracy: government by the badly educated.

Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat.

There are a lot of books about the passing of the English aristocracy, but the vast majority of Long Islanders don't understand their own backyard. It's a private preserve.

Anyone's blood can become blue for a lump sum down.

Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.

There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob.

Our aristocracy, unlike that of Europe, is open to all comers.

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

Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies.

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

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

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.

The principle of avoiding the unnecessary expenditure of energy has enabled the species to survive in a world full of stimuli; but it prevents the survival of the aristocracy.

Aristocracy is always cruel.

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.

To make Democracy work, you need an aristocratic democracy. To make Aristocracy work, you need a democratic aristocracy.

Aristocracy's only an admission that certain traits which we call fine - courage and honor and beauty and all that sort of thing - can best be developed in a favorable environment, where you don't have the warpings of ignorance and necessity.

An aristocracy is the true support of a monarchy.

Our whole system of banks is a violation of every honest principle of banks. There is no honest bank but a bank of deposit. A bank that issues paper at interest is a pickpocket or a robber. But the delusion will have its course. ... An aristocracy is growing out of them that will be as fatal as the feudal barons if unchecked in time.

You are apprehensive of monarchy; I, of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.

Newport, Rhode Island, that breeding place-that stud farm, so to speak-of aristocracy; aristocracy of the American type.

Good manners disappear in proportion as the influence of a Court and an exclusive aristocracy lessens; this decrease can be plainly observed from decade to decade by those who have an eye for public behavior, which grows visibly.

Lords are lordliest in their wine.

All that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused and summoned forth by contrast.

Piety, like nobility, has its aristocracy.

The odious and disgusting aristocracy of wealth is built upon the ruins of all that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner of a barbarism scarcely capable of cure.

The persons who constitute the natural aristocracy, are not found in the actual aristocracy, or, only on its edge; as the chemicalenergy of the spectrum is found to be greatest just outside of the spectrum.

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

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.

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

The aristocracy of feudal parchment has passed away with a mighty rushing, and now, by a natural course, we arrive at aristocracy of the money-bag.

An occasional insurrection will not weigh against the inconveniences of a government of force, such as are monarchies and aristocracies.

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

The aristocracy are not the farmers who work the land, and raise the produce, but are the mere consumers of the rent; and when compared with the active world, are the drones, a seraglio of males, who neither collect the honey nor form the hive, but exist only for lazy enjoyment.

Aristocracy has a tendency to degenerate the human species.

Aristocracy is kept up by family tyranny and injustice.