Elitism Quotes

“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 best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“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, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

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

“They're so cold, these scholars!
May lightning strike their food
so that their mouths learn how
to eat fire!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“If one cannot learn from the mistakes of others, one might as well become a Democrat.”
― Esther M. Friesner, My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding

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

“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, The Story of My Life

“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

“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

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

“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, Remembrance of Things Past: Volume I - Swann's Way & Within a Budding Grove

“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

“MAN: Mr. Chomsky, I’m wondering what specific qualifications you have to be able to speak all around the country about world affairs?
 
None whatsoever. I mean, the qualifications that I have to speak on world affairs are exactly the same ones Henry Kissinger has, and Walt Rostow has, or anybody in the Political Science Department, professional historians—none, none that you don’t have. The only difference is, I don’t pretend to have qualifications, nor do I pretend that qualifications are needed. I mean, if somebody were to ask me to give a talk on quantum physics, I’d refuse—because I don’t understand enough. But world affairs are trivial: there’s nothing in the social sciences or history or whatever that is beyond the intellectual capacities of an ordinary fifteen-year-old. You have to do a little work, you have to do some reading, you have to be able to think, but there’s nothing deep—if there are any theories around that require some special kind of training to understand, then they’ve been kept a carefully guarded secret.
In fact, I think the idea that you’re supposed to have special qualifications to talk about world affairs is just another scam—it’s kind of like Leninism [position that socialist revolution should be led by a “vanguard” party]: it’s just another technique for making the population feel that they don’t know anything, and they’d better just stay out of it and let us smart guys run it. In order to do that, what you pretend is that there’s some esoteric discipline, and you’ve got to have some letters after your name before you can say anything about it. The fact is, that’s a joke.
 
MAN: But don’t you also use that system too, because of your name-recognition and the fact that you’re a famous linguist? I mean, would I be invited to go somewhere and give talks?
 
You think I was invited here because people know me as a linguist? Okay, if that was the reason, then it was a bad mistake. But there are plenty of other linguists around, and they aren’t getting invited to places like this—so I don’t really think that can be the reason. I assumed that the reason is that these are topics that I’ve written a lot about, and I’ve spoken a lot about, and I’ve demonstrated a lot about, and I’ve gone to jail about, and so on and so forth—I assumed that’s the reason. If it’s not, well, then it’s a bad mistake. If anybody thinks that you should listen to me because I’m a professor at M.I.T., that’s nonsense. You should decide whether something makes sense by its content, not by the letters after the name of the person who says it. And the idea that you’re supposed to have special qualifications to talk about things that are common sense, that’s just another scam—it’s another way to try to marginalize people, and you shouldn’t fall for it.”
― Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

“If our lives were to be defined by inaccessibility, we could recontextualize that definition as a choice. A distaste for the interests of those who could afford to have interests. Art, which had never been truly democratic to begin with, was now an
unattainable interest.”
― Ling Ling Huang, Immaculate Conception

“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

“Never forget that it is we New Yorkers and New Englanders who have the monopoly of whatever oxygen there is in the American continent.”
― Van Wyck Brooks

“Anyone who wants to be in power doesn't deserve it and anyone who deserves it doesn't want it.”
― Jessica Marie Baumgartner

“Meanwhile, while I professed to
be making a farce of taste, I was still following taste’s lone remaining edict:
you could like bad things without embarrassment, so long as you conceded
their badness. You could sin, as long as you made clear which god you
prayed to.”
― Emily Mester, American Bulk: Essays on Excess

“A França l'ortografia gaudeix d'un estatut social d'obligació i de control que l'han convertit en una veritable institució; unes pràctiques rigoroses en matèria de correcció transformen l'ortografia en la més aspra de les proves selectives.”
― Jean Vial

“Until the late modern era, more than 90 per cent of humans were peasants who rose each morning to till the land by the sweat of their brows. The extra they produced fed the tiny minority of elites - kings, government officials, soldiers, priests, artists and thinkers - who fill the history books. History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was plowing fields and carrying water buckets.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“Grouse moors exist or one purpose only: to maximise the numbers of a particular bird, the red grouse, for weathy men and women to shoot. Theirs is an entirely artificial, intensively managed environment. Moorland heather is extensively burned to encourage the fresh shoots eaten by young grouse. Many grouse moors were drained historically, because it was thought this would improve the otherwise damp conditions for both sheep and game birds. Gamekeepers lace the moors with traps to kill animals that predate on grouse: stoats, weasels, foxes and birds of prey. It's illegal to kill birds of prey, but that doesn't stop it happening: the unlawful persecution of raptors is endemic on Britain's grouse moors. And if you want to own a grouse moor, you have to be rich: even the Spectator says that owning one is 'screamingly' elitist and 'the ultimate trophy asset'.”
― Guy Shrubsole, The Lie of the Land

“I am an elitist and a perfectionist. Narcissist, no. You cannot both willfully ignore your flaws and try to eradicate them at the same time.”
― Sebastyne Alpha

“And they liked to say they were very lucky and very blessed by God, but it was always clear they meant they were special. Set not just apart, but above.”
― Hanna Pylväinen, The End of Drum-Time

“It's not Left versus Right,
Black versus White,
or even Rich versus Poor;
It's Elitism versus Humanity.

If we don't learn how to stand against this common threat nothing will ever change.”
― Gavin Nascimento

“What is religion without service? Bedtime story!
What is philosophy without service? Pastime!
What is psychology without service? Gossip!
What is science without service? Aristocracy!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Beware of fanatics bearing good news, but also beware of aristocrats bearing reason.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Intelligence without compassion is more dangerous than ignorance with power.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Servant Scientists (Naskaristana 2907)

Anybody can inspire the youth to become scientists,
any trustfund white guy or even chatgpt can do that,
the point of Naskar is to ignite Servant Scientists,
because if a scientist does not burn with the fire of
service, they are no better than religious fanatics.

Growing up in the lap of aristocratic luxury,
then calling people's basic necessities a delusion,
it doesn't make you a great scientist,
it just makes you a white colonial trash.

If religion must accept the responsibility
for religious fanaticism, science must also accept
the responsibility for scientific mindlessness,
because intelligence without compassion
is more dangerous than ignorance with power.

True science will always be ethical,
but greed-centered apes cannot fathom such science,
nor can privilege-pampered aristocratic knowitalls,
their science is more concerned with what can be done,
instead of asking whether it should be done.

This is not the Science of Naskar -
I don't want fewer scientists,
I want scientists with character,
not just a militant mouth -
I don't want fewer believers,
I want belief centered on compassion.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Come close, let me stuff your ugly militant mouth with a handful of scorching hot chili peppers, then let me give you a five hour lecture on the chemistry of H2O and its relation to life, before offering you a glass of water. First compassion, then rationalism; first humanity, then philosophy.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human