Richard Hofstadter Quotes

There's one form of bigotry that is still acceptable in America - that's the bigotry against the successful.

There are very few people on top of life, and the rest of us don't like them very much.

The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them.

Because I have a little bit more, that means I'm better than you? No. Unacceptable.

I try to not be or associate with elitists.

What a sense of superiority it gives one to escape reading some book which everyone else is reading.

I think snobbery is one of the oldest customs in the world, and the rich will always find ways to rank each other and make themselves feel more special than others.

Lists are anti-democratic, discriminatory, elitist, and sometimes the print is too small.

Talent is very dangerous. It alienates people.

I was unpopular at school just because I was an intellectual. I always answered all the questions off the top of my head but they nevertheless resented because of that.

Freedom looks differently when you are the one it is being practiced on.

You [a country] cannot be rich, successful and powerful and still be loved, particularly be those who have little success, wealth or power.

Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow.

Resentment — that feeling when the modern promise of equality collides with massive disparities of power, education, status and property ownership.

Tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits of wealth, security, and prestige, it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie and accept that it alone is entitled to privilege.

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

I don't want to be elitist.

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

Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn't like people who didn't think. I didn't know if that was snobby. Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?

All a guy needed was a chance. Somebody was alway controlling who got a chance and who didn't.

Equal opportunity is good, but special privilege is better.

For intellectuals, everyone's mind is closed but their own.

Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much?

A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.

there is undoubtedly something irritating about the favorites of fortune.