Quotes on Aristocracy

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

A poet’s freedom lies precisely in the impossibility of worldly success. It is the freedom of one who knows he will never be anything but a failure in the world’s estimation, and may do as he pleases. The poet is a man on the sidelines of life, sidelined for life. He belongs to the aristocracy of the outcast, the lowest of the low, below the salt of the earth. A member of the most ancient regime in the world. One that cannot, it seems, be overthrown.

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.

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Let us in education dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity

The only true aristocracy is that of consciousness.

The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.