Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) British writer
Source: The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832), p. 51
Jedes Zeitalter wird, wenn es historischen Rang hat, von Aristokratien gestaltet.
Aristokratie = die Besten herrschen.
Niemals regieren Völker sich selbst. Diesen Wahnsinn hat der Liberalismus erfunden. Hinter seiner Volkssouveränität verstecken sich nur die gerissensten Schelme, die nicht erkannt sein wollen.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)
Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) British writer
Source: The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832), p. 51
Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé (1848–1910) French diplomat, orientalist, travel writer, archaeologist, philanthropist and literary critic
Russian Novelists (1887), page 10 (translated by Jane Loring Edmands)
Joseph Priestley book Essay on the First Principles of Government
Section III, "Of Civil Liberty"
Essay on the First Principles of Government, 2nd Edition (1771)
Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America
Book Two, Chapter XX.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Two
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
XVIII, p. 483. Usually misquoted as "Democracy…while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy".
1810s, Letters to John Taylor (1814)
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
1963, Address at Vanderbilt University
E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist
What I Believe (1938)
Context: I believe in aristocracy, though — if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.
Thomas D'Arcy McGee (1825–1868) Canadian politician
Legislative Assembly, February 9, 1865
Context: 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. (Hear, hear.)