Oligarchy Quotes

38 Oligarchy quotes by 31 unique authors

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to… — Gilbert K. Chesterton
To bring about government by oligarchy, masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our Federal government.… — Franklin D. Roosevelt
To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the… — Thomas Jefferson
Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government . . . can never be in danger of degenerating into a… — George Washington
Our authorities leave us no doubt that the trust lodged with the oligarchy was sometimes abused, but it certainly ought not to be regarded as… — Henry James Sumner Maine
No government by experts in which the masses do not have the chance to inform the experts as to their needs can be anything but… — John Dewey
In the Soviet Union, government controls industry. In the United States, industry controls government. That is the principal structural difference between the two great oligarchies… — Edward Abbey
Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from… — Aristotle
. . . this oligarchy of sex, which makes fathers, brothers, husbands and sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters… — Susan B. Anthony
Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos. — Polybius
The right constitutions, three in number- kingship, aristocracy, and polity- and the deviations from these, likewise three in number - tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from… — Aristotle
A democracy exists whenever those who are free and are not well-off, being in the majority, are in sovereign control of government, an oligarchy when… — Aristotle
Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy, with discrimination against Blacks and outrages by the Ku Klux Klan. — Che Guevara
What’s happened is that, almost overnight, we’ve switched from democracy in real-property recording to oligarchy in real-property recording. There was no court case behind this,… — Christopher Peterson
Power that controls the economy should be in the hands of elected representatives of the people instead of an industrial oligarchy — William O. Douglas
Of all the objections which have been framed against the federal Constitution, this is perhaps the most extraordinary. Whilst the objection itself is levelled against… — James Madison
Dark influences from the American past congregate among us still. If we are a democracy, what are we to make of the palpable elements of… — Harold Bloom
All men agree that a just distribution must be according to merit in some sense; they do not all specify the same sort of merit,… — Aristotle
As an American citizen, one has to vote. If we don't vote, we're not doing our part. We'll become some sort of oligarchy. — Jason Mraz
I never complain. I chose the road of fighting with the Ukrainian oligarchy in 1996, and have paid for this with my freedom and that… — Yulia Tymoshenko
The free-trade idea, logically applied, will abolish usury; and with usury will disappear the chief bone of contention between labor and capital. But, just at… — Ezra Heywood
It is acknowledged, namely, that there are in the world three forms of government, autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy: autocracies and oligarchies are administered according to… — Aeschines
Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by a handful of… — Vladimir Lenin
Nothing in our time is more interesting than the erstwhile capitalist corporation and the erstwhile Communist firm should, under the imperatives of organization, come together… — John Kenneth Galbraith
The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy. — Baron de Montesquieu

Who Wrote These Oligarchy Quotes

31 authors contributed a total of 38 Oligarchy Quotes, led by these top contributors: