Benjamin Disraeli Quotes

If you try and level society, then nobody will do anything.

However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.

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

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

In this country there is no rank but rank mutton.

The prime culprit in causing contemporary social inequality seems to be merit.

For many centuries Chinese society has been free of class distinctions such as are found even in advanced democracies.

I don't campaign for the end of the aristocracy or the upper classes; I don't really want to destroy anything at all. I just want more plurality.

I don't like a class system. I don't like the idea of being in a different class than other people.

It has often been said, that there is but one rank of men in America… we have no artificial distinctions of men into noblemen and commoners among us, but it ought to be remarked, that superior degrees of industry and capacity, and above all, commerce, have introduced inequality of property among us, and these have introduced natural distinctions of rank in Pennsylvania, as certain and general as the artificial distinctions of men in Europe. This will ever be the case while commerce exists in this country.

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.

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.

There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents;... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy.

On the battlefield, there is no distinction between upper and lower class.

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.

There is no distinction of persons among them, and deference is shown to merit rather than to noble blood.

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

Distinction in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions.

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

Keep up the middle class; lop off aristocracy on the one hand, and a rabble at the other; let the middle class ... have the power.

To abolish class distinctions means abolishing a part of yourself.

The preposterous distinctions of rank, which render civilization a curse, by dividing the world between voluptuous tyrants and cunning envious dependents, corrupt, almost equally, every class of people, because respectability is not attached to the discharge of the relative duties of life, but to the station…

A meritocracy increases inequality --- by its very nature, it has to.

The gap between aspiration and reality could hardly be wider. Today, the United States has less equality of opportunity than almost any other advanced industrial country. Study after study has exposed the myth that America is a land of opportunity. This is especially tragic: While Americans may differ on the desirability of equality of outcomes, there is near-universal consensus that inequality of opportunity is indefensible.

Tory society is a closed society, in which birth and wealth have priority.