Quotes About Aristocracy

We tend to forget that in those days before the Internet and HBO and Imax and 3-D cinema, opera was the thing. Opera and theatre. If you were a man of the world and you mingled among the happy few, you would be at the opera.

We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.

had set himself to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.

I am covered with fine gold, said the Prince, you must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor.

The St. James's

the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.

Lord Canterville: I feat that the ghost exists . . . and always makes its appearance before the death of any member of our family. Mr. Otis: Well, so does the family doctor for that matter, Lord Canterville. But there is no such thing, sir, as a ghost, and I guess the laws of Nature are not going to be suspended for the British aristocracy.

But there is no such thing, sir, as a ghost, and I guess the laws of Nature are not going to be suspended for the British aristocracy

He had set himself to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.

If England wants a happy, well-fed aristocracy, she mustn't have wars. She can't have it both ways.

Unlike the male codfish, which, suddenly finding itself the parent of three million five hundred thousand little codfish, cheerfully resolves to love them all, the British aristocracy is apt to look with a somewhat jaundiced eye on its younger sons. And Freddie Threepwood was one of those younger sons who rather invite the jaundiced eye.

Lady Constance's lips tightened, and a moment passed during which it seemed always a fifty-fifty chance that a handsome silver ink-pot would fly through the air in the direction of her brother's head.

Sir Jasper Finch-Farrowmere?' said Wilfred. 'ffinch-ffarrowmere,' corrected the visitor, his sensitive ear detecting the capitals.

Morning, Bill,' said Lord Tidmouth agreeably. 'Go to hell!' said Bill. 'Right-ho,' said his lordship.

Unlike the male codfish which, suddenly finding itself the parent of three million five hundred thousand little codfish, cheerfully resolves to love them all, the British aristocracy is apt to look with a somewhat jaundiced eye on its younger sons.

He resorted to tyranny—the favored fallback of English aristocrats when democracy wasn't going their way.

Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies.

Hence I think it is that democracies change into aristocracies, and these at length into monarchies,' people at last prefer tyranny to chaos. Equality of power is an unstable condition; men are by nature unequal; and 'he who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.' Democracy has still to solve the problem of enlisting the best energies of men while giving to all alike the choice of those, among the trained and fit, by whom they wish to be ruled.

Bacon distrusts the people, who were in his day quite without access to education; "the lowest of all flatteries is the flattery of the common people";41 and "Phocion took it right, who, being applauded by the multitude, asked, What had he done amiss?

Plato's reduction of political evolution to a sequence of monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, and dictatorship found another illustration in the history of Rome.

The Roman Republic would soon be destroyed by the unfettered energy of its great men. The redeeming feature of this aristocracy and

Yet democracy is on the whole inferior to aristocracy.92 For it is based on a false assumption of equality; it "arises out of the notion that those who are equal in one respect (e.g., in respect of the law) are equal in all respects; because men are equally free they claim to be absolutely equal.

This is why we can't leave the making of laws to men. They result in travesties of injustice that unfairly burden the poor. And women. Those high and mighty aristocrats, in their black robes and powdered wigs—they have no idea.

In stark contrast to William's mother, Kate had never come close to moving in aristocratic circles, much less royal ones. She was an untitled commoner, a descendant of coal miners and factory workers. Kate's mother, Carole, grew up partly in public housing and was working as a British Airways flight attendant when she met and married fellow airline employee Michael Middleton.