Howard E. Wasdin Quotes

Part of the attraction of the SEAL teams was the incredible tests that it offered.

Elite is not a bad word, it's an aspirational one.

We don't have titles on our business cards. No one really gets any special treatment. No one gets a corner office to put pictures of their family and their dog in.

I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy - I don't disparage envy, but I don't accept it as legitimately my master.

In baseball, democracy shines its clearest. The only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rule book. And color, merely something to distinguish one team's uniform from another's.

Language does not make one an elite.

I'm one of the boys, no better than the last second violinist. I'm just the lucky one to be standing in the center, telling them how to play.

I don't believe in social equality, and they know it.

I care about education for everyone, not just the elite.

There is something inherent in our democracy that tends to want to level. America is a little uncomfortable in the presence of someone who is distinctly superior in whatever way.

I want nothing to do with privilege.

Our aristocracy, unlike that of Europe, is open to all comers.

The SAS is the most elite of the special forces in the world. They are not people who go out and advertise; they keep it inside. They don't want anybody to know about them.

When I do all-hands calls - and I do a lot of all-hands calls - and I look out across 50 people, or 5,000 people, I see United States sailors. I do not see male sailors, or female sailors, and I do not think anybody else does, either.

We must recover the element of quality in our traditional pursuit of equality. We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments.

On the field, everyone is equal.

Seal Team Six is a different unit than the rest of the SEAL teams inasmuch as they concentrate primarily on one thing, counter-terrorism, hostage rescue.

Every society naturally divides itself into classes. The author of nature has bestowed on some greater capacities than on others--birth, education, talents and wealth, create distinctions among men as visible and of as much influence as titles, stars and garters. In every society, men of this class will command a superior degree of respect--and if the government is so constituted as to admit but few to exercise the powers of it, it will, according to the natural course of things, be in their hands.

Aristocracy is naturally abhorrent to me, and adored equality is my idol.

Even if we accept, as the basic tenet of true democracy, that one moron is equal to one genius, is it necessary to go a further step and hold that two morons are better than one genius?

We have been taught by experience the danger of the levelling spirit.

Your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.

The typical white intellectual considers himself superior to ordinary white people for two contradictory reasons: a) he constantly proclaims belief in human equality, but they don't ; b) he has a high IQ, but they don't.

… in a republic where all are free and equal--prosperity and position constitute rank.

Capitalism is very undemocratic. Capitalism gives you power according to your wealth while democracy gives you power according to your existence.