#elitism

There are some among the so-called elite who are overbearing and arrogant. I want to foster leaders, not elitists. ↗

— Daisaku Ikeda

#elitism #leadership #leadership

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' ↗

— Isaac Asimov

#elite #elitism #elitist #voter #voting

Like it or not, philosophy or intellectual activity in ancient China was distinguished from manual labor, and thus philosophical texts were not only political in nature (because they normally addressed the issue of good government and social order) but also “esoteric.” They were not meant to contribute to general education, but to be studied only by a small fraction of the population, i.e., by those who had access to learning and power. If we want to understand the Laozi historically, we have to accept this context and thus also the fact that, as a philosophical treatise, it did not attempt to be generally accessible. It was originally a text for the few—and it clearly shows. ↗

— Hans-Georg Moeller

#elitism #education

Of course, there's a certain type of person who feels that anything which becomes mainstream has to be rejected immediately. And that's part of the indie-alternative snobbery and hierarchy and elitism. ↗

— Alex Kapranos

#becomes #certain #course #elitism #feels

...what is art to the dilettante but the initiation of the sacred few to the exclusion of the profane crowd?... ↗

— John Geddes

#elitism #exclusivism #writing #art

Americans worship creativity the way they worship physical beauty - as a way of enjoying elitism without guilt: God did it. ↗

— Florence King

#creativity #did #elitism #enjoying #god

They're so cold, these scholars! May lightning strike their food so that their mouths learn how to eat fire! ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#education #elitism #higher-education #scholars #scholarship

When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn. ↗

— Mark Twain

#elitism #humor #redheads #humor

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than "politicians" think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas (and because it constantly produces them) that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think. ↗

— Michel Foucault

#elitism #intellectualism #politics #populism #imagination

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#elite #elitism #elitist #meritocracy #politics