#aristocracy

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. ↗

— Mercy Otis Warren

#banish #domestic #general #independence #kind

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

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

#badly #democracy #educated #government #means

The aristocracy of Western Europe has absolutely tabooed silver in those countries and driven it away from there. Here it finds its only resting place. ↗

— Richard Parks Bland

#aristocracy #away #countries #driven #europe

Wherever magistrates were appointed from among those who complied with the injunctions of the laws, Socrates considered the government to be an aristocracy. ↗

— Xenophon

#appointed #aristocracy #complied #considered #government

Ninety-nine per cent of traditional English literature concerns people who never have to worry about money at all. We always seem to be watching or reading about emotional crises among folk who live in a world of great fortune both in matters of luck and money; stories and fantasies about rock stars and film stars, sporting millionaires and models; jet-setting members of the aristocracy and international financiers. ↗

— James Kelman

#crises #emotional #english-literature #fortune #money

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#capitalism #corruption #government #history #oppression

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

— James Bryant Conant

#based #calling #each #elite #excellence

To add to our misery and despair, a bloated aristocracy has sent to China - the greatest and oldest despotism in the world - for a cheap working slave. ↗

— Denis Kearney

#aristocracy #bloated #cheap #china #despair

I believe in aristocracy, though -- if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secreat understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but power to endure, and they can take a joke. ↗

— E.M. Forster

#considerate #e-m #forster #pluck #sensitive

An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off; it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead. ↗

— Nancy Mitford

#aristocracy #been #chicken #cut #dead