Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.

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.

A Plowman on his knees is higher than a Gentleman on his legs.

I was no Marie Antoinette. I was not born to nobility, but I had a human right to nobility.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people.

The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.

Common sense, in so far as it exists, is all for the bourgeoisie. Nonsense is the privilege of the aristocracy. The worries of the world are for the common people.

In my position, I could be a debutante. But we only got to this position by being a politically active family.

It is the dissimilarities and inequalities among men which give rise to the notion of honor; as such differences become less, it grows feeble; and when they disappear, it will vanish too.

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

A court is an assembly of noble and distinguished beggars.

Elites quite naturally define as the most important and admired qualities for a citizen those on which they themselves have concentrated.

All shall equal be. The Earl, the Marquis, and the Dook, The Groom, the Butler, and the Cook, The Aristocrat who banks with Coutts, The Aristocrat who cleans the boots.

I intended to be one of the governing 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.

The middle class is always a firm champion of equality when it concerns a class above it; but it is its inveterate foe when it concerns elevating a class below it.

Kings need the company of the intelligent far more than the intelligent need the company of kings.

In America, everybody is, but some are more than others.

Lords are lordliest in their wine.

Eminent station makes great men more great, and little ones less.

Even with a round table, some people always seem able to sit at the head of it.

Nature's noblemen are everywhere,--in town and out of town, gloved and rough-handed, rich and poor. Prejudice against a lord, because he is a lord, is losing the chance of finding a good fellow, as much as prejudice against a ploughman because he is a ploughman.