Quotes About Elitism

If I were asked where I place the American aristocracy, I should reply without hesitation that it is not composed of the rich, who are united together by no common tie, but that it occupies the judicial bench and the bar.

For some people, 'erudition' is nothing more than a vehicle for hostility and arrogance; 'good taste' merely an excuse for condescension--or worse, censorship -- Sadie

To the elitist hedonist, life is the avoidance of boredom and routine.

You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can't tell him much.

As I got into middle school, I was really an outcast. But everybody was an outcast in middle school. I don't know who got the idea to put all kids going through puberty together in a school and give them academic elitism and competition and pit them against each other.

I'm not an elitist. I hate the fashion industry sometimes because it becomes so focused on the elite.

I like the elitism of the art world. I think art for the people is a terrible idea.

Americans worship creativity the way they worship physical beauty - as a way of enjoying elitism without guilt: God did it.

All rebels are closet aristocrats.

The surest sign that an aristocracy exists is the discovery of barriers against change, curtains of iron or steel or stone or of any substance which excludes the new, the different.

There has been a genuine willingness from many in the arts sector to try to understand people who are not within the arts elite.

Wine is my passion. I'm not keen on the snobbery or elitism of wine, that's not what it's about - I just really enjoy it.

The psychologist Barry Schwartz recently proposed that elite schools give up their complex admissions process and simply hold a lottery for everyone above the threshold. "Put people into two categories," Schwartz says. "Good enough and not good enough. The ones who are good enough get put into a hat. And those who are not good enough get rejected.

For who will dare to force his way out of the crowd, — not of the mere vulgar, — but of the vain and banded aristocracy of intellect, and presume to join the almost supernatural beings that stand by themselves aloof?

For the primary function of culture in Gissing's scheme of things was to segregate him from other people. To qualify as culture, knowledge had to be abstruse.

Our political system is now run by the Big People for their own interests. If they ever deign to notice the Little People, it is with disdain and contempt.

You cannot live your life in the elitist world of fashion and not step out or you're disconnected. You have to realize that fashion is not the endgame.

In life there exist two classes: first class and no class.

The meritocratic society has given way to a hereditary meritocracy.

The shabbier the snobbier.

Ah, the superior masochism of the privileged.

Nearly all bookish people are snobs, and especially the more enlightened among them. They are apt to assume that if a writer has immense circulation, if he is enjoyed by plain persons, and if he can fill several theatres at once, he cannont possibly be worth reading and merits only indifference and disdain.

When golf used to be a rich man's sport, if you were poor you could not step foot on a course.

The intelligentsia are those who have been educated beyond their intelligence.