Aristocracy Quotes - Page 5

• All men agree that a just distribution must be according to merit in some sense; they do not all specify the same sort of merit, but democrats identify it with freemen, supporters of oligarchy with wealth (or noble birth), and supporters of aristocracy with excellence.

  Aristotle

  Men, Excellence, Noble

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• 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.

  Ayn Rand

  Equality, Men, Law

  Ayn Rand (1999). “The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution”, p.119, Penguin

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• It was a JOB; the video show was a JOB; you don't tell the Aristocrats joke at 8 o'clock at night on network tv, it would be funny though. But those guys know I like dirty stuff, I like clean stuff too.

  Bob Saget

  Jobs, Dirty, Night

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• 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.

  Bob Saget

  People, Want, Comedy

  "Bob Saget talks dirty about The Aristocrats". MovieWeb Interview, movieweb.com. July 25, 2005.

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

  James Ransone

  Gratitude, Lasts, Modern

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• 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.

  Thomas D'Arcy McGee

  Class, Land, Talent

  Legislative Assembly, February 9, 1865.

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• Just as a royal rule, if not a mere name, must exist by virtue of some great personal superiority in the king, so tyranny, which is the worst of governments, is necessarily the farthest removed from a well-constituted form; oligarchy is little better, for it is a long way from aristocracy, and democracy is the most tolerable of the three.

  Aristotle

  Kings, Names, Government

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.299, Simon and Schuster

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• I would be the last to deny that the greatest scientific pioneers belonged to an aristocracy of the spirit and were exceptionally intelligent, something that we as modest investigators will never attain, no matter how much we exert ourselves. Nevertheless ... I continue to believe that there is always room for anyone with average intelligence ... to utilize his energy and ... any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain, and that even the least gifted may, like the poorest land that has been well-cultivated and fertilized, produce an abundant harvest.

  Santiago Ramon y Cajal

  Believe, Intelligent, Men

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• 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.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Law, Age

  "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II, Book Two, Chapter XX, 1840.

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• They that are discontented under monarchy, call it tyranny; and they that are displeased with aristocracy, call it oligarchy: so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy, call it anarchy, which signifies the want of government; and yet I think no man believes, that want of government, is any new kind of government.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Believe, Men, Thinking

  'Leviathan' (1651) pt. 2, ch. 19

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• Aristocracy: A combination of many powerful men, for the purpose of maintaining their own particular interests. It is consequently a concentration of all the most effective parts of a community for a given end, hence its energy, efficiency and success.

  James F. Cooper

  Powerful, Men, Class

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• Christians believe themselves to be the aristocracy of heaven upon earth, they are admitted to the spiritual court, while millions of men in foreign lands have never been presented. They bow their knees and say they are 'miserable sinners,' and their hearts rankle with abominable pride. Poor infatuated fools! Their servility is real and their insolence is real but their king is a phantom and their palace is a dream.

  William Winwood Reade

  Christian, Dream, Spiritual

  William Winwood Reade (1874). “The Martyrdom of Man”, p.533

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• I am firmly convinced, as I have already said, that to effect any great social improvement, it is sympathy rather than self-interest, the sense of duty rather than the desire for self-advancement, that must be appealed to. Envy is akin to admiration, and it is the admiration that the rich and powerful excite which secures the perpetuation of aristocracies.

  Henry George

  Powerful, Self, Envy

  Henry George (1884). “Social Problems”

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• Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Wisdom, Democracies Have, Government

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• Philosophers and scientists confidently offer up traits said to be uniquely human, and the monkeys and apes casually knock them down -- toppling the pretension that humans constitute some sort of biological aristocracy among the beings on Earth.

  Carl Sagan

  Earth, Monkeys, Apes

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• Jeffersonian Democracy simply meant the possession of the federal government by the agrarian masses led by an aristocracy of slave-owning masses.

  Charles A. Beard

  Government, Political, Democracy

  Charles A. Beard (2017). “Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy: How Hamilton's Merchant Class Lost Out to the Agrarian South”, p.9, Courier Dover Publications

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• 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.

  Bertrand Russell

  Political, Definitions, Inspired

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• 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.

  Aristotle

  Numbers, Political, Democracy

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• As I look back now I can see that I was a perfect little aristocrat.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Perfect, Looks, Littles

  James Weldon Johnson (2012). “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man”, p.3, Courier Corporation

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• I am one of those who do not believe that a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic; inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country.

  Andrew Jackson

  Wisdom, Country, Believe

  Andrew Jackson, Sam B. Smith, Harriet Fason Chappell Owsley, Harold D. Moser (1996). “The Papers of Andrew Jackson: 1821-1824”, p.399, Univ. of Tennessee Press

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• 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.

  Henry George

  Slave Owners, Special, Slavery

  Henry George (2006). “Protection Or Free Trade”, p.21, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Virginia was in fact a landowning aristocracy, without nobility or merchant class, or any considerable small peasant farming class; and the other Southern colonies, except North Carolina, were on the whole similar to Virginia in these respects.

  Carl L. Becker

  Virginia, Class, Southern

  "Search Results The United States: An Experiment in Democracy". Book by Carl L. Becker, 1920.

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• The perversions are as follows: of royalty, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional government, democracy.

  Aristotle

  Government, Democracy, Oligarchy

  Aristotle (2016). “Politics”, p.91, Aristotle

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• Whatever advantages may have arisen, in the past, out of the existence of a specially favored and highly privileged aristocracy, it is clear to me that today no argument can stand that supports unequal opportunity or any intrinsic disqualification for sharing in the whole of life.

  Margaret Mead

  Past, Opportunity, Equality

  Margaret Mead (1972). “Blkberry Winter”

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

  Ronald Syme

  Vitality, Empires, British History

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