David Riesman Quotes

There is no democracy in physics. We can't say that some second-rate guy has as much right to opinion as Fermi.

One should be very careful indeed about using such loaded terms as ‘frustration,’ ‘anger,’ and especially ‘resentment’ to explain populism. One should at least face up to the political consequences of such psychologizing diagnoses — namely, that they end up confirming those people’s view of ‘liberal elites’ as being not just deeply condescending but also constitutively unable to live up to their own democratic ideals by failing to take ordinary people at their word.

The strain of 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."

This is the core claim of populism. Only some of the people are really the people.

The problem is never the populist’s imperfect capacity to represent the people’s will; rather, it’s always the institutions that somehow produced the wrong outcomes. So even if they look properly democratic, there must be something going on behind the scenes that allows corrupt elites to continue to betray the people. Conspiracy theories are thus not a curious addition to populist rhetoric; they are rooted in and emerge from the very logic of populism itself.

No social class, intellectual category or art form is immune to the snob virus.

There are no modern successful societies that do not deal with the issues raised by Populists and Fabianists but also avoid going to one of these extremes. The modern battle for power in democartic socities is between Populism and Fabianism.

Inside the intelligentsia, the pressure of public opinion is overwhelming. Nationalistic loyalty towards the proletariat, and most vicious theoretical hatred of the bourgeoisie, can and often do co-exist with ordinary snobbishness in everyday life.

The last thing we need are more pointy-headed intellectuals running the government.

They have acted like carnivores who used the world to enrich only themselves, and whether it's the election of Donald Trump, or Brexit, the elites have realized that the people have stopped listening to them, that the people want to determine their futures and, in a perfectly democratic framework, regain control of their destiny.

The same group of New York pseudo-intellectuals who've put down prayer are the same ones who put down L.A.

Earnestness is stupidity sent to college.

Yale students want to impress you with what they're doing. Harvard students want to impress you with how cool they look while doing it.

The Delhi elite doesn't like me because I'm smarter than them.

I had been an academic all my life. As academics, you tend to believe the smartest people are in academia.

The art house is an elitist idea.

I am and I will remain a populist, because those who listen to the people are doing their job, whereas the radical chic who disgust workers are no longer wanted by the people.

It makes me sad there is still some intellectual snobbery out there.

Arendt did have a certain snobbishness, though in some of her writing she expressed more democratic attitudes.

The main threat to the future of Europe is not those who want to come here to live but our own political, economic, and intellectual elites bent on transforming Europe against the clear will of the European people.

I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing.

People who think honestly and deeply have a hostile attitude towards the public.

I don't suppose you offered to help?" "Sage," Adrian declared. "These hands don't do manual labor." He knocked another ball into a hole. "You want to play?" "What? With you?" "No, with Clarence." He sighed at my dumbfounded look. "Yes, of course with me.

A wise man's kingdom is his own breast: or, if he ever looks farther, it will only be to the judgment of a select few, who are free from prejudices, and capable of examining his work. Nothing indeed can be a stronger presumption of falsehood than the approbation of the multitude; and Phocion, you know, always suspected himself of some blunder when he was attended with the applauses of the populace.