Quotes & Sayings About Elitism

After years of working with missionaries, I am tempted to conclude that their endeavors merely prolong a dying race's agonies for ten or twenty years. The merciful plowman shoots a trusty horse grown too old for service. As philanthropists, might it not be our duty to likewise ameliorate the savages' sufferings by hastening their extinction? Think of your Red Indians, Adam, think on the treaties you Americans abrogate & renege on, time & time & time again. More humane, surely & more honest, just to knock the savages on the head & get it over with? — David Mitchell

But i am a black man whose black mama's body and spirit were terrorized by another black man's hands and words. Sexism and patriarchy are not part of the revolution. I am a gender-maneuvering gay black man whose spirit was terrorized by other straight black men. Hetero-sexism and heteronormativity are not a part of our revolution. I am a black man who has ignored the plights of so many of my brothers. Separation because of difference and elitism based on class is not a part of the revolution. — Kiese Laymon

For all the claims of his detractors that Stewart is the epitome of East Coast elitism, there is more self-deprecating New Jersey grit here than arrogant Manhattan elan. — Anonymous

And yet, strange to say, now that the truth [of natural selection] is recognized by most cultivated people ... now more than ever, in the history of the world, are they doing all they can to further the survival of the unfittest. — Herbert Spencer

For at least a century, the music has been captive to a cult of mediocre elitism that tries to manufacture self-esteem by clutching at empty formulas of intellectual superiority. — Alex Ross

As you probably know, I'm often accused of intellectual exhibitionism and all forms of elitism. Although I can understand this point of view, it's a rather wasted argument because, if we regard areas of information as being elite and therefore somehow not usable, it means our centre-ground of activity becomes very, very impoverished. — Peter Greenaway

What are the purposes of examinations anyhow? Are they to increase our educational attainment? Or are they instruments used to bring suffering and humiliation and deep hurt to a person who is trying so hard to succeed? — Virginia Mae Axline

I wonder why it is that the countries with the most nobles also have the most misery? — Francis Bacon

Two principles have stood face-to-face from the beginning of time; and they will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. — Abraham Lincoln

The mother tongue of politicians is that of ancient Babylon: a language designed to severely limit discourse within a tower of praise to elitism, a language carried on breath's reeking of the fecal matter from their paymasters — Dean Cavanagh

Eventually, I started to cringe at the elitism that was often paired with punk and the like. A movement that professed inclusiveness seemed to actually be highly exclusive, as alienating and ungraspable as many of the clubs and institutions that drove us to the fringes in the first place. One set of rules had simply been replaced by new ones, and they were just as difficult to follow. — Carrie Brownstein

Populism and elitism are the same thing. They are class prejudices, crude class prejudices that so-and-so, because they are uneducated, is less worthy, or so-and-so, because they are richer or more educated, is unworthy. — David Brooks

Acid is not for every brain ... Only the healthy, happy, wholesome, handsome, hopeful, humorous, high-velocity should seek these experiences. This elitism is totally self-determined. Unless you are self-confident, self-directed, self-selected, please abstain. — Timothy Leary

We must be careful to avoid spiritual elitism. Everything we are and anything we possess as believers in Christ is a gift of grace. Pure hearts before God must be cleansed from any hint of spiritual pride. — Beth Moore

The overarching issue, as I see it, is the elitism of America's political system; the fact that regular, ordinary Americans aren't considered in policy debates or legislation, and regularly get shafted by the powers-that-be in Washington. — Jerry Springer

We have learned that to enable learning, an environment must be trusting, humanistic, and positive. It must promote high emotional engagement; mutual accountability; open-mindedness; permission to speak freely; reporting of and tolerance for mistakes; a maniacal vigilance against arrogance, elitism, and complacency; and the devaluation of status and hierarchy. — Edward D. Hess

He was not what gentlemen usually thought a gentleman was. — David Halberstam

Free verse seemed democratic because it offered freedom of access to writers. And those who disdained free verse would always be open to accusations of elitism, mandarinism. Open form was like common ground on which all might graze their cattle - it was not to be closed in by usurping landlords. — James Fenton

Class amusements, be they for Dukes or plow-boys, always become nuisances and curses to a country. The true charm of cricket and hunting is that they are still, more or less sociable and universal; There's a place for every man who will come and take his part. — Thomas Hughes

Feelings of superiority always stem from an illusion. — Marty Rubin

Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism. — Florence King

Because I'm associated with an avant-garde sensibility, people think I'm looking down on popular culture, but I don't want to be part of a new elitism. — Robert Wyatt

The only genuine hope of feminist liberation lies wth a vision of social change which challenges class elitism. — Bell Hooks

We are attempting to build, within our movement, non-exploitative ways of relating to one another based on trust and concern rather than political expediency. We have serious personal/political intentions in breaking down hierarchical and elitist structures, and for experimenting with leaderless groups and collective decision making. In dealing with the media these revolutionary principles and practices are destroyed. The media works to create leaders, it knows no way of relating to us on our own terms. Being interviewed and presented as a leader is a real ego trip
the media brings out the most counter-revolutionary traits in people. Elitism, dissension and division are the ultimate results. — Nancy Ferro

Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity. — Sydney J. Harris

We still thought that we were the only two people in the world who were interested in the right kind of things in the right kind of way. C.S. Lewis — Philip Zaleski

Being slim is the new elitism. Thinness today says that you are richer, smarter and more successful than the overweight masses. — David Zinczenko

These transnationalists have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite's global operations — Samuel P. Huntington

Egalitarianism trumps elitism. Only a selfish fool will tell you otherwise — Jonny Oates

Morality is what the queen expects from the hive, not from herself. — Marty Rubin

I love pop culture
the Rolling Stones, the Doors, David Lynch, things like that.
That's why I said I don't like elitism. — Haruki Murakami

Of course, there's a certain type of person who feels that anything which becomes mainstream has to be rejected immediately. And that's part of the indie-alternative snobbery and hierarchy and elitism. — Alex Kapranos

Both Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are inexhaustible. They are celebrations of the ordinary, compelling reactions to philosophical elitism about "the good life". I hope to examine both of them further, doing more justice to Joycean comedy than I did in my "invitation" to the Wake, and trying to understand how the extraordinary stylistic innovations, particularly the proliferation of narrative forms, enable Joyce to "see life foully" from a vast number of sides. — Philip Kitcher

I do not mean to object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works we read. I object only to the interminable comments and bewildering criticisms that teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as there are men. — Helen Keller

Wordsmiths who serve established power ... castrate the public imagination by subjecting language to a complexity which renders it private. Elitism is always their aim. — John Ralston Saul

And it's a ... it's a term 'Punk Rock' that's based on contempt; it's a term that's based on fashion , style , elitism, satanism , and, everything that's rotten about rock 'n' roll. — Iggy Pop

When I was growing up, there was a feeling in one's living room as much as in one's local gallery that a little elitism was good for the soul. — Andrew O'Hagan

The master demon Screwtape identifies elitist humanity's tendency toward an ingrained habit of belittling anything that concerns the great mass of their fellow men. — C.S. Lewis

The language of elitism smells bad! It is not healthy to believe that we are the only ones to have captured truth and even less healthy to condemn others. — Jean Vanier

Community as belonging ...
In many groups of people and clubs of all sorts (political, sports, leisure, liberal professions, etc.) people find a sense of security. They are happy to find others like themselves. They receive comfort one from another, and they encourage one another in their ways. But frequently there is a certain elitism. They are convinced that they are better than others. And, of course, not everyone can join the club; people have to qualify. Frequently these groups give security and a sense of belonging but they do not encourage personal growth. Belonging in such groups is not for becoming.
You can often tell the people who belong to a particular club, group or community by what they wear, especially on feast days, or by their hairstyle, their jargon or accent or by badges and colours of some sort. Grouping seems to need symbols which express the fact that they are one tribe, one family, one group. — Jean Vanier

People say to me 'you're successful, what are you crying about?'. I'm crying about the people. I'm crying about their daughters. Our daughters, as one family. What good is it. What good is anything that everyone can't have. Every ism. They think we're done with racism. What about elitism, what about separatism, what about classism? That's all. — Kanye West

Don't say anything against indies. They're very sensitive. One hint of elitism and they'll be organizing a twitcott. — Josh Lanyon

Special Circumstances had always been the Contact section's moral espionage weapon, the very cutting edge of the Culture's interfering diplomatic policy, the elite of the elite, in a society which abhorred elitism. Even before the war, its standing and its image within the Culture had been ambiguous. It was glamorous but dangerous, possessed of an aura of roguish sexiness - there was no other word for it - which implied predation, seduction and even violation ... No other part of the Culture more exactly represented what the society as a whole really stood for, or was more militant in the application of he Culture's fundamental beliefs. Yet no other part embodied less of the society's day-to-day character. — Iain Banks

I don't believe in elitism. I don't think the audience is this dumb person lower than me. I am the audience. — Quentin Tarantino

Like it or not, philosophy or intellectual activity in ancient China was distinguished from manual labor, and thus philosophical texts were not only political in nature (because they normally addressed the issue of good government and social order) but also "esoteric." They were not meant to contribute to general education, but to be studied only by a small fraction of the population, i.e., by those who had access to learning and power. If we want to understand the Laozi historically, we have to accept this context and thus also the fact that, as a philosophical treatise, it did not attempt to be generally accessible. It was originally a text for the few - and it clearly shows. — Hans-Georg Moeller

In crew, contempt is important. In Boston, Boston University and Northeastern crew are treated with contempt by the college up the river. Intramural crew is treated with contempt. Nonathletic coxswains (Chinese engineering majors, poets) are treated with contempt. A true coxswain is a diminutive jock, raging against the pint size that made him the butt of so many jokes at Prep school. He runs twenty stadiums a day, his girlfriend is six feet one, and he can scream orders even when he has the flu (which he catches at least three times a winter). — Lisa Birnbach

What I have said, and still believe with ever-increasing conviction, is that human society is always,
whether it will or no, aristocratic by its very essence, to the extreme
that it is a society in the measure that it is aristocratic, and ceases to
be such when it ceases to be aristocratic — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

In contradistinction to the underestimation in the field of rocket science and the aerospace industry, Parsons' accomplishments in the arcane sciences have been highly overrated and grossly exaggerated. As a magician he was essentially a failure. As a Thelemite he learned the hard way what was required. He loved Crowley's 'Law' but couldn't adhere to it - though he tried harder than most. He violated the rules, undertook unauthorized and unorthodox magical operations, and claimed the grade of Magister Templi without first completing all the grades below it. He couldn't handle working under authority - his ego was too big. His record of failure is valuable in that regard. He was a great promulgator of thelemic ideals in his essays, but as an idealist his elitism ruined his work. Indeed, some would say he was guilt of hubris, which the gods always punish. — John Carter

People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves. — C. Wright Mills

Vote to stand tall against terrorists ; receive Social Security privatization . Vote to strike a blow against elitism; receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our lifetimes , in which workers have been stripped of power and CEOs are rewarded in a manner beyond imagining. — Thomas Frank

Anything that is exclusive will be accused of elitism; living one's dreams will be called pretentious. So let's indulge the whim and see where it takes us. — Fennel Hudson

There's this kind of almost - kind of a weird kind of elitism that says well maybe - maybe certain people in certain parts of the world shouldn't be free; maybe it's best just to let them sit in these tyrannical societies. And our foreign policy rejects that concept. And we don't accept it. And so we're working. — George W. Bush

I find the elitism and blatant provincialism of many (Manhattan-based) New Yorkers unattractive. Just as place can be an identity crutch that helps a person feel individual, place can be a crutch in poetry. — Cate Marvin

To sneer at others for not believing the same as you is the height of arrogance and elitism, the top failings of any leader who governs at the grace of the people. — Robert J. Crane

Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-proclaimed expertise are always rank-closing and mutually self-defending, above all else. — Glenn Greenwald

They loved their country largely because they controlled it. — Tom Clancy

The problem with call-in shows is quite simple, if you only dare to admit it: Democracy is best when not everyone can be heard all the time. If we are constantly reminded of all the stupid things that people say and think, it becomes rather difficult to remember the good and noble arguments for everyone to be able to participate and decide. — Johan Hakelius

There's an elitism that comes out with the entertainment industry. I'll talk about some shows, but I'm not gonna say that you're dumb for watching one over the other. I just let it go. I don't have to declare a fatwa on any of these things. I've gotten over some of my elitism. — W. Kamau Bell

Rich or poor, money rules with an iron fist. — Gary Hopkins

The forces which are working out the great scheme of perfect happiness, taking no account of incidental suffering, exterminate such sections of mankind as stand in their way, with the same sternness that they exterminate beasts of prey and herds of useless ruminants. — Herbert Spencer

'Worshipping in private,' as Obama does, comes off as just another form of annoying elitism. — Tina Brown

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

She's on the stairs, ma'am, getting her breath,' said the young servant, who had not been long up from the country, where my mother had the excellent habit of getting all her servants. Often she had seen them born. That's the only way to get really good ones. And they're the rarest of luxuries. — Marcel Proust

There's a lot of people talking about elitism and all of that.Yes, I went to Princeton and Harvard, but the lens through which I see the world is the lens that I grew up with. I am the product of a working class upbringing. — Barack Obama

Instead of feeling sorry for the exceptionally able student who has no one to talk to, we need to worry about what happens when the exceptionally able students hang out only with one another. — Charles Murray

The ills of the world, and their cures, are listed below: 1) A world of privilege is a world of elitism and injustice. Meritocracy is the cure. 2) Capitalism, the creed of "Greed is good", is the disease of materialism and objectification for the sole purpose of profiting the ownership class. A new spiritual, artistic, creative and intellectual paradigm is the cure. 3) Abrahamism is a mental illness. Illuminism is the psychological cure. 4) The religious divide between East and West has held back global progress. Illuminism, a religion of enlightenment and reincarnation in common with Eastern thinking, yet steeped in the most profound Western thinking, is the bridge. The — Michael Faust

[I]t is indisputably the mediocre, if not the low, both as regards morality and intelligence, who succeed in life and multiply the fastest. — Alfred Russel Wallace

There is something wrong with this world." She stood like she was making a speech. "Something very wrong when it's the twenty-first century and this type of elitist travesty is still being perpetuated. — Alex Flinn

There you have it: an expensive higher education based on sloganeering, on pat, trite phrases that substitute moral posturing for political reasoning. It's elitism masquerading as egalitarianism. — Camille Paglia

Liberalism is not fond of fun, or at least of many forms of fun that many people like. — George F. Will

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than "politicians" think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas (and because it constantly produces them) that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think. — Michel Foucault

Everybody keeps calling for Excellence excellence not just in schooling, throughout society. But as soon as somebody or something stands out as Excellent, the other shout goes up: "Elitism!" And whatever produced that thing, whoever praises that result, is promptly put down. "Standing out" is undemocratic. — Jacques Barzun

What is art to the dilettante but the initiation of the sacred few to the exclusion of the profane crowd? ... — John Geddes

I know where a lot of them [the elite or elitists] live.
Where's that?
Well, in our nation's capital and New York City. I've seen it. I've lived there. — John McCain

There's something strange about theater. My characters consistently demonize elitism, but of course it's taking place in a theater where only so many people can see it. I've been in silly popcorn movies - the kind of thing that as an actor you might feel embarrassed about - but those movies reach many more people. — Jesse Eisenberg

Of England's patrician class, the author writes: It was easy to be agreeable when everything was done to keep them in comfort and ease. — Barbara W. Tuchman

One thing that's important to point out is that this kind of populism has a long and mixed history. It's part of this tradition of problematic anti-elitism where the elites are always the liberal class - the intellectuals, the professors, the artists - and not the economic elites. Why are we so mad and aggrieved at newspaper editors but not at corporate executives? I think we need to look more at the latter, at economic elites. — Astra Taylor

When I re-read the Odyssey, it felt like I was reading PD James or Minette Walters - you feel that you are sharing in something that hundreds of millions of people have read with love, and I think that this is worth holding onto. It is not a matter of canonical texts or elitism, which the universities are trying to make us wary about. It is about shared language and metaphor and experience and imagery and that is all good. — Robert Dessaix

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' — Isaac Asimov

The very essence of school is elitism. Schools exist to teach, to test, to rank hierarchically to promote the idea that knowing and understanding more is better than knowing and understanding less. — William A. Henry III

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. — H.L. Mencken

[General-in-Chief of the army, Lieutenant General Winfield] Scott not only believed that the idea [for a battlefield decoration, to wit, a Medal of Honor, or valor] smacked of Old World vanity, elitism, and snobbery, he also thought that such an award was entirely unnecessary. — Russell S. Bonds

There's a certain elitism that has crept into the attitudes of some in journalism, and it played out perfectly over the issue of these little American flag lapel pins. — Brit Hume

But God's idea of a fast is less about what we're against and more about what we are for. (...) When we hear "fast," we put on a yoke of self-denial. When God said "fast," He meant to take off the yoke of oppression. The Isaiah 58 God is not about the mechanics of abstinence; it is a fast from self-obsession, greed, apathy, and elitism. When it becomes more about me than the marginalized I've been charged to serve, I become the confused voice in this passage: "Why have I fasted and you have not seen it? — Jen Hatmaker

...and any discussion of art vs. entertainment in the present cultural climate invites accusations of elitism and snobbery. — Steven Moore

Although you might have to creep about at night and lie to your mum it's actually one of the more honest art forms available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on the best walls a town has to offer and nobody is put off by the price of admission. — Banksy

[beware that] many of what are called social problems are differences between the theories of intellectuals and the realities of the world - differences which many intellectuals interpret to mean that it is the real world that is wrong and needs changing. — Thomas Sowell

I'm worried I will leave grad school and no longer be able to speak English. I know this woman in grad school, a friend of a friend, and just listening to her talk is scary. The semiotic dialetics of intertextual modernity. Which makes no sense at all. Sometimes I feel that they live in a parallel universe of academia speaking acadamese instead of English and they don't really know what's happening in the real world. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The conviction which we must share and spread is that the call to holiness is directed to all Christians. This is not a question of privilege or of spiritual elitism. It is a question of a grace offered to all the baptized. — Pope John Paul II

The tunnel under the wall of intellectual snobbery is the only way back to common sense reality, but most won't find it because it is beneath them. — D.E. Navarro

If there be any among those common objects of hatred which I can safely say I doe contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of reason, vertue and religion, the multitude, that numerous piece of monstrosity, which taken asunder seeme men, and the reasonable creatures of God; but confused together, make but one great beast, & a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra; it is no breach of Charity to call these fooles; it is the stile all holy Writers have afforded them, set down by Solomon in canonicall Scripture, and a point of our faith to beleeve so. — Thomas Browne

They're a nasty bunch of people. The Riot Club's sole purpose is to celebrate wealth, elitism, hedonism, and excess - just random acts of destruction and chauvinism, which is interesting because our Prime Minister, our Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Mayor of London were are a part of this club. — Max Irons

The better I understood my education, the angrier I became that most working-class and poor people are denied one. Why are the children of doctors, lawyers, and engineers taught the mysteries of existence while the children of janitors and waitresses are taught fear? I developed a preoccupation with my own inadequacies, aided by a few professors of elitism. To combat my growing anxiety, I began to envision myself a class spy. I would soak up all of the information they could give me and run reconnaissance for my team. — Frances Varian

Excel in your field: Whatever you do, try to be the best at it. There is too much mediocrity all around and we have learnt to live with it. However, awesomeness has no place for mediocrity. And do not confuse excellence with elitism. Being excellent at your work is different from considering yourself superior to others. — Chetan Bhagat

When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn. — Mark Twain

To me, the masses seem to be worth a glance only in three respects: first as blurred copies of great men, presented on bad paper with worn out printing plates, then as the resistance against the great men, and finally as working implements of the great. For the rest, let the devil and statistics carry them off! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Classical music is a genre of music. It's no more complex or less complex than pop music or R&B. The elitism is weird. — Theo Hutchcraft

There are some among the so-called elite who are overbearing and arrogant. I want to foster leaders, not elitists. — Daisaku Ikeda

An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger. — Dan Rather

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. — Winston S. Churchill