"The perversions are as follows: of royalty, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional government, democracy."
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Aristocracy quotes
Aristocracy
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Aristocracy quotes (page 2 of 6)
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"An occasional insurrection will not weigh against the inconveniences of a government of force, such as are monarchies and aristocracies."
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"There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob."
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"All that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused and summoned forth by contrast."
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"The only true aristocracy is that of consciousness."
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"By the aristocracy of finance must here be understood not merely the great loan promoters and speculators in public funds, in regard to whom it is immediately obvious that their interests coincide with the interests of the state power. All modern finance, the whole of the banking business, is interwoven in the closest fashion with public credit."
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"Good manners disappear in proportion as the influence of a Court and an exclusive aristocracy lessens; this decrease can be plainly observed from decade to decade by those who have an eye for public behavior, which grows visibly."
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"What a terrible thing to be a great lord, yet a wicked man."
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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."
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"Oxford is a little aristocracy in itself, numerous and dignified enough to rank with other estates in the realm; and where fame and secular promotion are to be had for study, and in a direction which has the unanimous respect of all cultivated nations."
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"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."
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"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."
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"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."
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"The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most - for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government?"
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"An hereditary aristocracy... will change the form of our governments from the best to the worst in the world."
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"Aristocracy's only an admission that certain traits which we call fine - courage and honor and beauty and all that sort of thing - can best be developed in a favorable environment, where you don't have the warpings of ignorance and necessity."
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"Aristocracy is a relative thing. And there are plenty of out-of-the-way places where the son of an upholsterer is the arbiter of fashion and reigns over a court like any young Prince of Wales."
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"To make Democracy work, you need an aristocratic democracy. To make Aristocracy work, you need a democratic aristocracy."
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"In England we only make films about the working class or the aristocracy."
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"Aristocracy: government by the badly educated."
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