Mary Renault Quotes

Envy is the basis of democracy.

The disorganisers are those who want to level everything: property, comforts, the price of commodities, the various services rendered to the State... who want the workmen in the camp to receive the salary of the legislator... who want to level even talents, knowledge, the virtues, because they themselves have none of these things.

The seasick passenger on an ocean liner detests the good sailor who stalks past him 265 times a day grandly smoking a large, greasy cigar. In precisely the same way the democrat hates the man who is having a better time in the world. This is the origin of democracy. It is also the origin of Puritanism.

To me, elitism means a love of excellence and superiority, but America has declared war on both and developed a sick love of the lowest common denominator to make sure no-one becomes too fine for our touted democracy. We are almost at the point of regarding every virtue as elitist.

[T]here is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it.

Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: "Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I."

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 don't believe in elitism. I don't think the audience is this dumb person lower than me. I am the audience.

Envy, like the worm, never runs but to the fairest fruit; like a cunning bloodhound, it singles out the fattest deer in the flock.

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

Nietzsche should not be taken seriously as a political theorist, at least not at the level of his positive prescriptions. But the Nietzsche who denounces the insipidity and mediocrity that result from democracy's levelling impulses could not be more acute.

Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low.

One does not hate so long as one continues to rate low, but only when one has come to rate equal or higher.

"Mediocrity" doesn't mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters.

What pushes the masses into the camp of socialism is, even more than the illusion that socialism will make them richer, the expectation that it will curb all those who are better than they themselves are.

They hate you because you act like you're better than they are

When you're the absolute best, you get hated on the most.

The masses do not like those who surpass them in any regard. The average man envies and hates those who are different.

Some people insist that "mediocre" is better than "best." They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can't fly. They despise brains because they have none.

Familiarity breeds contempt. By bringing them in close, they realize that you’re just as human as they are. That’s when the madness sets in. They can’t understand why you have more than they do when you’re just a regular human being the same as them. Then they hate you for it. (Leta)

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

There can be little doubt that many egalitarians are motivated at least partly by envy.

Base natures ever judge a thing above them, and hate a power they are too much obliged to.

We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence.

By sending the contradictory message that the famous are just plain folks on Mount Olympus, America has forged a relentless tension between loftiness and accessibility. Stir in the fact that the inborn talent and intelligence needed to achieve fame are immune to distributive tinkering by government programs and you have a definition of fame certain to produce envious rage: somebody screwed democracy.