Top 231 Aristocracy Quotes & Sayings

To the feudal aristocracy and the aristocracy of the spirit, nobility derives from diametrically opposite sources. The glory of the feudal aristocrat is in being a link in the longest possible chain of ancestors. The glory of the aristocrat of the spirit is in having no ancestors - or having as few as possible. If an artist is his own ancestor, if he has only descendents, he enters history as a genius; if he has few ancestors, or is related to them distantly, he enters history as a talent.

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

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.

It may be a mere patriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that the English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown and flower of all actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as well as all the defects. It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious matters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The great and very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that nobody could possibly take it seriously.

Even if their outward fortunes could be absolutely equalized, there would be, from individual constitution alone, an aristocracy and a democracy in every land. The fearful by nature would compose an aristocracy, the hopeful by nature a democracy, were all other causes of divergence done away.

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

Since nature does not endow all men with equal beauty or equal intelligence, and the faculty of volition leads men to make different choices, the egalitarians propose to abolish the "unfairness" of nature and of volition, and to establish universal equality in fact - in defiance of facts. It is not equality before the law that they seek, but inequality: the establishment of an inverted social pyramid, with a new aristocracy on top - the aristocracy of non-value.

Shall we have recourse to the art of printing? But this has not destroyed property or aristocracy or corporations or paper wealth in England or America, or diminished the influence of either; on the contrary, it has multiplied aristocracy and diminished democracy.

The aristocracy most widely developed in America is that of wealth.

Aristocracy is kept up by family tyranny and injustice.

I'm not from aristocracy, or anything like that.

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.

Aristocracy: government by the badly educated.

There is no society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create an aristocracy.

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

In order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy was obliged to lose sight, apparently, of its own interests, and to formulate its indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited working class alone. Thus, the aristocracy took their revenge by singing lampoons on their new masters and whispering in his ears sinister prophesies of coming catastrophe.

Aristocracy has a tendency to degenerate the human species.

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

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

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.

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

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

The aristocracy in the future is not one of wealth or university education, but the aristocracy of the men who have done something for themselves and their fellow men.

An organized effort is making to deceive the people. There are two great enemies of thought and progress, the aristocracy of royalty and the aristocracy of gold.

The fate of you, the aristocracy of industry, will be as the fate of the aristocracy of land if you do not show that you have some humanity still among you.

It is a know fact that almost all revolutions have been the work, not of the common people, but of the aristocracy, and especially of the decayed part of the aristocracy.

The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and moneyed incorporations and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling...I hope we shall...crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to trial and bid defiance to the laws of our country. I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

Instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic.

I don't believe any more in democracy. But I can't believe in the old sort of aristocracy, either, nor can I wish it back, splendid as it was. What I believe in is the old Homeric aristocracy, when the grandeur was inside a man, and he lived in a simple wooden house.

Christianity is completely and radically anti-democratic; it is committed to spiritual aristocracy.

Creating senates, the French critics said, implied that there was another social order besides the people represented in the houses of representatives. [John] Adams actually agreed with that implication and argued that the aristocracy and the people had to have separate houses; this was the only way the power of the aristocracy could be contained.

This is a new land - a land of pretension because it is new; because classes and systems have not had that time to grow here naturally. We have no aristocracy but of virtue and talent, which is the only true aristocracy, and is the old and true meaning of the term.

We have nobility in Sweden, and it comes from the old British aristocracy.

I like aristocracy. I like the beauty of aristocracy. I like the hierarchical feeling.You could claim that it's due to my military experience. But it came before that. I love their freedom of behavior. They're not constrained by penal attitudes, puritanical attitudes about behavior, both socially and morally. They have a freedom that I admire. An unquestioned freedom.

The right constitutions, three in number- kingship, aristocracy, and polity- and the deviations from these, likewise three in number - tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, democracy from polity.

Wars are popular. Contractors make profits; the aristocracy glean honour.

Aristocracy is always cruel.

An aristocracy is the true support of a monarchy.

One of the interesting things is is that Judaism was very attractive to the Roman aristocracy.

Piety, like nobility, has its aristocracy.

The best Governments of the World have bin composed of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy.

The tea-kettle is as much an English institution as aristocracy or the Prayer-Book.

The strength and vitality of an empire is frequently due to the new aristocracy from the periphery.

We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money.

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.

What I used to respect was not really aristocracy, but a set of personal qualities which aristocracy then developed better than any other system . . . a set of qualities, however, whose merit lay only in a psychology of non-calculative, non-competitive disinterestedness, truthfulness, courage, and generosity fostered by good education, minimum economic stress, and assumed position, AND JUST AS ACHIEVABLE THROUGH SOCIALISM AS THROUGH ARISTOCRACY.

I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either.

We are fast moving toward an aristocracy of health.

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

It depends on the consent of the people to decide whether kings or consuls or other magistrates are to be established in authority over them, and if there is legitimate cause, the people can change a kingdom into an aristocracy, or an aristocracy into a democracy, and vice versa, as we read was done in Rome.

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

The only true aristocracy is that of consciousness.

The principal feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things — war and hunger and date rape — liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things.... It's a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about this aristocracy is that you don't have to be brave, smart, strong or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal.

Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance. . . . There will always be the false snobbery which tries to place one vocation above another. You will become a member of the aristocracy in the American sense only if your accomplishments and integrity earn this appellation.

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

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

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 best work in the world was always done by members of the aristocracy.

The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men and to relieve their distresses. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public.

Aristocracy and exclusiveness tend to final overthrow, in language as in politics.