Non Elites Quotes & Sayings

[W]ithout changing the most molecular relationships in society - notably, those between men and women, adults and children, whites and other ethnic groups, heterosexuals and gays (the list, in fact, is considerable) - society will be riddled by domination even in a socialistic 'classless' and 'non-exploitative' form. It would be infused by hierarchy even as it celebrated the dubious virtues of 'people's democracies,' 'socialism' and the 'public ownership' of 'natural resources,' And as long as hierarchy persists, as long as domination organises humanity around a system of elites, the project of dominating nature will continue to exist and inevitably lead our planet to ecological extinction — Murray Bookchin

I am the nightmare. — Marie Lu

Modern elites live in bubbles of liberal affluence like Ann Arbor, Brookline, the Upper West Side, Palo Alto, or Chevy Chase. These places used to have impoverished neighborhoods nearby, but the poor people got chased out by young singles living in group homes, hipsters, and urban homesteading gay couples. — P. J. O'Rourke

They were the best of friends as long as they did not know they were supposed to be enemies. The truth would do its damage soon enough.
- Brothers in Fire, by Jedtare — Marie Lu

As always with any discussion of elite immunity, it's crucial to note that what makes this development such a particularly warped travesty is that the very same elites who enjoy this immunity have created the world's largest, and the Western world's most oppressive and merciless, penal state for ordinary citizens. — Glenn Greenwald

You are so full of light," I say after a moment. "You align with joy, and I with fear and fury. If you could see into my thoughts, you would surely turn away. So why would you stay with me, even if return to Kenettra and resume our lives?"

"You paint me as a saint," he murmurs. "But I aligned with greed solely to prevent that."

Even now, he can make my lips twitch with a smile. "I'm serious, Magiano."

"As am I. None of us are saints. I have seen your darkness, yes, and know your struggle. I won't deny it." He touches my chin with one hand. At this gesture, the whispers seem to settle, pushed away where I can't hear them. "But you are also passionate and ambitious and loyal. You are a thousand things, mi Adelinetta, not just one. Do not reduce yourself to that. — Marie Lu

Relationships based on deals between leaders or ruling elites tend to collapse amid popular anger. — Stephen Kinzer

The political terms 'will' and 'popular will' have a long track record in Western history going back to Rousseau. That record is profoundly anti-democratic, essentially inviting elites to interpret what the common people believe and want. In litigious modern America, that would be a judicial elite telling us how we meant to vote or should have voted. — John Leo

The Tea Party elites gained extraordinary influence by being able to funnel millions of undisclosed dollars into campaigns with ads that distort the truth and attack government. — Chuck Schumer

The breakup of the Soviet Union is a national tragedy on an enormous scale only the elites and nationalists of the republics gained. — Vladimir Putin

Although Adam Smith is today often regarded as a "conservative" figure, he in fact attacked some of the dominant ideas and interests of his own times. Moreover, the idea of a spontaneously self-equilibrating system - the market economy - first developed by the Physiocrats and later made part of the tradition of classical economics by Adam Smith, represented a radically new departure, not only in analysis of social causation but also in seeing a reduced role for political, intellectual, or other elites as guides or controllers of the masses. — Thomas Sowell

Though the elite have been opened, and have opened themselves to the world, the world has not opened to all. Access is not the same as integration. But what is crucial is that no one is explicitly excluded. The effect is to blame non-elites for their lack of interest. As we have seen, the result of this logic is damning. The distinction between the elites and the rest of us appears to be a choice. It is cosmopolitanism that explains elite status to elites and closed-mindedness that explains those who choose not to participate. What matters are individual attributes and capacities, not durable inequalities. From this point of view, those who are not successful are not necessarily disadvantaged; they are simply those who have failed to seize the opportunities afforded by our new, open society. — Shamus Rahman Khan

The song 'Take This Job and Shove It' spent 18 weeks on the country charts in 1977. 1970s country music fans had a clearer understanding of the ennui of wage-slavery than modern elites. — Alex Pareene

Take democracy. According to the common-sense meaning, a society is democratic to the extent that people can participate in a meaningful way in managing their affairs. But the doctrinal meaning of democracy is different - it refers to a system in which decisions are made by sectors of the business community and related elites. The public are to be only "spectators of action," not "participants," as leading democratic theorists (in this case, Walter Lippmann) have explained. They are permitted to ratify the decisions of their betters and to lend their support to one or another of them, but not to interfere with matters - like public policy - that are none of their business. — Noam Chomsky

Modernity has only lasted less than a dozen generations, while orthodox Christianity has already flourished for more than four hundred generations and shows no sign of fatigue. Yet orthodoxy seems like a newcomer in the university and to the cultural elites, since that is where it has been most forgotten. — Thomas C. Oden

When ordinary people wake up, elites begin to tremble in their boots. They can't get away with their abuse. They can't get away with subjection. They can't get away with subjugation. They can't get away with exploitation. They can't get away with domination. It takes courage for folk to stand up. — Cornel West

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

I have never voted. Like most people I am utterly disenchanted by politics. Like most people I regard politicians as frauds and liars and the current political system as nothing more than a bureaucratic means for furthering the augmentation and advantages of economic elites. — Russell Brand

The day will come when we strike you down," she's saying. "Mark my words. We will haunt your nightmares."

I clench my fists and fling an illusion of pain across her body. "I am the nightmare. — Marie Lu

They couldn't hurt Gansey. Nothing could hurt him; people who said money couldn't buy everything hadn't seen anyone as rich as the Aglionby boys. They were untouchable, immune to life's troubles. Only death couldn't be swiped away by a credit card. — Maggie Stiefvater

The Tea Party elites believe government is evil. Everything about government is bad, and they blame all problems, even non-economic problems, problems that were caused by the private sector, on government. — Chuck Schumer

Slavery wasn't a crisis for British and American elites until abolitionism turned it into one. Racial discrimination wasn't a crisis until the civil rights movement turned it into one. Sex discrimination wasn't a crisis until feminism turned it into one. Apartheid wasn't a crisis until the anti-apartheid movement turned it into one. — Naomi Klein

In the process Paul laid out a comprehensive theory of poverty, of a world designed by the elites of all nations to serve their own ends, the pieces of the design enshrined in ideologies, which erased the histories of how things came to be as they were. — Tracy Kidder

What unified the Balochis in their quest to regain self-determination, which resulted in the 'existing state'? On the one hand, authoritarianism, militarization, and conquest has robbed them of their history and put them into the do or die situation. On the other hand, natural resources which would allow the citizens at large to achieve a respectable existence have been controlled by the military or political elites, well connected to feudal political elites in Pakistan. — Nilantha Ilangamuwa

Imagine if the political elites in our country were forced to endure the same conditions at the airport as business travelers, families, senior citizens, and the rest of us. Perhaps this problem could be quickly resolved if every cabinet secretary, every member of Congress, and every department head in the Obama administration were forced to submit to the same degrading screening process as the people who pay their salaries. — Ron Paul

The elites - or managers in companies - no longer control the conversation. This is how insurrections start. — Marc Benioff

As masters of the bond market, the Rothschilds were already more feared than loved. Reactionaries on the Right lamented the rise of a new form of wealth, higher-yielding and more liquid than the landed estates of Europe's aristocratic elites. As Heinrich Heine discerned, there was something profoundly revolutionary about the financial system the Rothschilds were creating: — Niall Ferguson

The Kennedy lifestyle is something that is looked upon favorably by the elites throughout our culture, both political and social. — Rush Limbaugh

In Parton's telling, the Village is "a permanent D.C. ruling class who has managed to convince themselves that they are simple, puritanical, bourgeois burghers and farmers, even though they are actually celebrity millionaires influencing the most powerful government on earth."17 It's not just the activist base of the left and the right who have recognized the widespread elite failure; more and more individual elites have broken ranks to acknowledge their own responsibility. — Christopher L. Hayes

The first time Raffaele ever saw Adelina, it was a stormy-wracked night that changed her life and, indeed, the world. He recalls looking down from the window in his Dalia lodging to see a girl with silver-bright hair, conjuring an illusion of darkness such that he had never seen. He remembers the day she first came to his chambers in Estenzia, when Enzo was still alive and she was still innocent, and the way she looked up at him with her uncertain, damaged gaze. He remembers her test, and what he said to Enzo that night. How long ago that had been. How he had judged her wrongly. — Marie Lu

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

Prohibitionism is based on the premise that citizens will refrain from behaviors that are deemed immoral or harmful if such behaviors are decreed unlawful and criminal, even though such behaviors do not harm or unreasonably endanger others without their informed consent. Prohibitionism stems from totalitarian paternalism, an ideology rather prevalent among governing elites around the world, based on the presumption that people are feeble, foolish and irresponsible, needing constant protection from themselves. — Jeffrey Dhywood

Again and again the schools which form the twentieth century's elites throughout the West refer to their Socratic heritage. The implication is that doubt is constantly raised in their search for truth. In reality the way they teach is the opposite of a Socratic dialogue. In the Athenian's case every answer raised a question. With the contemporary elites every question produces an answer. Socrates would have thrown the modern elites out of his academy. — John Ralston Saul

The interesting point is that the polarization is not so much among the public, although there's some of that. The polarization on the immigration issue is really between the elites and the public. In other words, this is not so much a right-left issue, which it is partly. — Mark Krikorian

We can never be sure just which other business cards are in the pocket of pundit, politician, or professor. We can't be sure, in short, just who our elites are working for. But we suspect it is not us. — Christopher L. Hayes

These were wannabe elites who, once they popped on big-boy pants, would be infiltrating New York with their pretentiousness. — Alexandra Martin