Florence King Quotes

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.

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

But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here.

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.

I think Hollywood has a class system. The actors are like the inmates, but the truth is they're running the asylum.

This whole segregation between famous people and other people is complete rubbish.

That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic.

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.

The paradox of American democracy has been that its slogan of equal opportunity has meant, often, equal opportunity to get power over your fellows.

Our democracy may have an aristocracy of talent, as Jefferson said – which is fine – but we don’t want everyone else to be left out. Something like that seems to be happening, though.

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

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talent.

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

In a superior civilization, as, for example, that of the Indo-Aryans, the being who is without a characteristic form or caste... would emerge as a pariah. In this respect America is a society of pariahs. There is a role for pariahs. It is to be subjected to beings whose form and internal laws are precisely defined. Instead the modern pariahs seek to become dominant themselves and to exercise their dominion over all the world.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colors breaking through.

…to make a commonwealth is to divide it into parties, which setteth them at perpetual variance, the one party endeavouring to preserve their eminence and inequality, and the other to attain their equality.

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

America is a meritocracy.

It's the Met Gala - everyone is huge. It feels very hierarchical, and I get really nervous in hierarchical spaces because I feel like everyone deserves to feel just as special as everyone else, but that's just not the way it is in this business.

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

There is no good in living in a society where you are merely the equal of everybody else. The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.

I’m not a big fan of the class system, to be honest. It feels ugly to me. If you’ve got something to say and the work is good, it doesn’t matter where you come from

Chinks in America's egalitarian armor are not hard to find. Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.

What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence; the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?

Liberty is a need felt by a small class of people whom nature has endowed with nobler minds than the mass of men;.... Consequently, it may be repressed with impunity. Equality, on the other hand, pleases the masses.