“First-rate men will not canvass mobs; and if they did, the mobs would not elect the first-rate men.”
Source: 'Democracy on its Trial', Quarterly Review, 110, 1861, p. 281
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Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury 112
British politician 1830–1903Related quotes

“I would rather present a first-rate version of myself than a second-rate version of Mama.”
Liza Minelli, as quoted in I Remember It Well (1975) by Vincente Minelli with Hector Arce, p. 395 https://books.google.com/books?id=D6jDtmiJCpkC&q=minelli+%22second-rate%22+%22first-rate+version%22&dq=minelli+%22second-rate%22+%22first-rate+version%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCoQ6AEwBGoVChMI0on3sqjdxgIVxHg-Ch1NhwVD; reprinted in "Judy and Liza, Part 3" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=CfpjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WuYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7188%2C5401411 by Vincente Minelli, in The Sydney Herald (August 15, 1975), p. 8
Context: I couldn't sing Mama's special songs. I couldn't do them as well. I would rather present a first-rate version of myself than a second-rate version of Mama.

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”
As quoted in Business Etiquette for the Nineties : Your Ticket to Career Success (1992) by Lou Kennedy, p. 8
Variant: Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.
“First-rate science fiction was, and remains, more interesting than second-rate art.”
Ibid.
Essays and reviews, From the Land of Shadows (1982)

“I'd rather be a first-rate version of myself than a second-rate version of anybody.”
Liza Minelli, interviewed by Gene Shalit in the September 1977 issue of The Ladies Home Journal, as quoted in "Women in the News," https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yXMjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=a2cEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5851%2C3647577 in The Sarasota Herald-Tribune (August 24, 1977), p. 6-D
Variant: But I'd rather be a first-rate version of myself than a second-rate version of somebody else.
Context: I don't sing them because I couldn't sing them as well as she did. I'd rather be a first-rate version of myself than a second-rate version of anybody.

1900s, Letter to Winfield T. Durbin (1903)

“A hungry mob is an angry mob.”
Them Belly Full (But We Hungry), from the album Natty Dread (1974)
Song lyrics