“There is always more brass than brains in an aristocracy.”
Oscar Wilde Vera; or, The Nihilists
Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)
“Aristocracy is always cruel.”
1860s, Toussaint L'Ouverture (1861)
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Wendell Phillips23
American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orato… 1811–1884Related quotes
“In this cruel world kindness should always be repaid.”
Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale
Source: The Thirteenth Tale
Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
“The paternalist is a sentimentalist at heart, and the sentimentalist is always potentially cruel.”
Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) English novelist
"Los Angeles", p. 160
Exhumations (1966)
“Men are always the same. Fear makes them cruel.”
W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence
Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 55, p. 204
“There is only one true aristocracy… and that is the aristocracy of passionate souls!”
Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright
Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism
“What is liberal education,” pp. 4-5
Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968)
Context: It was once said that democracy is the regime that stands or falls by virtue: a democracy is a regime in which all or most adults are men of virtue, and since virtue seems to require wisdom, a regime in which all or most adults are virtuous and wise, or the society in which all or most adults have developed their reason to a high degree, or the rational society. Democracy, in a word, is meant to be an aristocracy which has broadened into a universal aristocracy. … There exists a whole science—the science which I among thousands of others profess to teach, political science—which so to speak has no other theme than the contrast between the original conception of democracy, or what one may call the ideal of democracy, and democracy as it is. … Liberal education is the ladder by which we try to ascend from mass democracy to democracy as originally meant.
Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) French writer
Source: Défense des Lettres [In Defense of Letters] (1937), p. 41
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.)