When I want to find the vanguard of the people I look to the uneasy dreams of an aristocracy and find what they dread most. - Wendell Phillips
Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated. - G.K. Chesterton
The intellect, like all cultural values, has created an aristocracy based on the possession of rational culture and independent of all personal ethical qualities of man. The aristocracy of intellect is hence an unbrotherly aristocracy. - Max Weber
There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob. - G. K. Chesterton
There exists a false aristocracy based on family name, property, and inherited wealth. But there likewise exists a true aristocracy based on intelligence, talent and virtue. - Tom Robbins
All governments eventually lean further and further towards aristocracy. - Frank Herbert
Ah, we shall never have a real aristocracy while this plebeian reluctance to live upon a parent or a wife continues the animating spirit of our youth. It strikes at the foot of the feudal system! - Howells William Dean
ARISTOCRACY, n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts -- guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts. - Ambrose Bierce
PRELATE, n. A church officer having a superior degree of holiness and a fat preferment. One of Heaven's aristocracy. A gentleman of God. - Ambrose Bierce