Elite Circles Quotes

For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, They arrive at their conclusions—largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none: But sometimes in a smoking-room, one learns why things were done.

Spurn not the nobly born with love affected; nor treat with virtuous scorn the well connected.

Nepotism has always existed in Bollywood.

The permanent power brokers of this city are the columnists.

Finally, there's a sense in which I look at this Westminster village and London intelligentsia as an outsider.

The old boys' club of closed tennis court relationships is on the way out.

I can get a better grasp of what is going on in the world from one good Washington dinner party than from all the background information NBC piles on my desk.

The Masonic aspect of Hollywood is so bizarre.

Having been a head of state gives you the possibility of getting into places others can't go.

I've had little success in intellectual circles. I'm not talked about in the 'New York Review of Books,' and I was never part of the Stravinsky 'inner circle.'

Even among the elite, in government circles, technological culture is somewhat deficient.

What I am asserting is that in this particular epoch a conjunction of historical circumstances has led to the rise of an elite of power; that the men of the circles composing this elite, severally and collectively, now make such key decisions as are made; and that, given the enlargement and the centralization of the means of power now available, the decisions that they make and fail to make carry more consequences for more people than has ever been the case in the world history of mankind

As we ascend in society, like those who climb a mountain, we shall find that the line of perpetual congelation commences with the higher circles; and the nearer we approach to the grand luminary the court, the more frigidity and apathy shall we experience.

Prestige is the shadow of money and power. Where these are, there it is. Like the national market for soap or automobiles and the enlarged arena of federal power, the national cash-in area for prestige has grown, slowly being consolidated into a truly national system.

If there's one thing white men have never had a problem with in this clubby, white marble enclave of Washington, it's getting pulled up the ladder by other men.

Thanks to the Internet in general and social media in particular, the Chinese people now have a mechanism to hold authorities accountable for wrongdoing - at least sometimes - without any actual political or legal reforms having taken place. Major political power struggles and scandals are no longer kept within elite circles.

[Cardinal John O'Connor] had [my wife] Margot and me over for drinks a couple of times. That was something I never could have envisioned back when I was a kid in Boston, that a cardinal and I would be, if not breaking bread, at least breaking Scotch.

One of the odder byways of nonfiction is the dishy memoir by those who have served the great or the near-great.

To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people - that is all!