Most Elitist Quotes

#1. Love itself is the most elitist of passions. It acquires its stereoscopic substance and perspective only in the context of culture, for it takes up more place in the mind than it does in bed. Outside of that setting it falls flat into one-dimensional fiction.

Joseph Brodsky

#2. Even the most elitist director or author who claims that he doesn't care if his works are seen or not, then I have to think that he's either a liar or a hypocrite.

Michael Haneke

#3. The Guinness book is a very elitist organization. There's nothing scientific about what they do. They just have an office full of people who decide what is a record and what isn't.

Jack White

#4. Most poets are elitist dregs more concerned with proving their skill with a dictionary than communicating ideas with impact.

Henry Rollins

#5. Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'

Isaac Asimov

#6. To the elitist hedonist, life is the avoidance of boredom and routine.

Timothy Leary

#7. I also think that everyone has an elitist approach to his own art, a complex knowledge of it, whether he is a clockmaker or an engineer. And I think it's perfectly legitimate to make use of this knowledge because it enriches the overall texture of life.

Peter Greenaway

#8. I didn't like any British music before The Beatles. For me, it was all about black American music. But then I became a successful pop singer, even though the kind of music I liked was more elitist, which is what I'm trying to get back to.

Lulu

#9. I'm regarded outside New York University as a looney tunes leftie, self-hating Jewish communist; inside the university, I'm regarded as a typical, old-fashioned, white male liberal elitist. I like that. I'm on the edge of both; it makes me feel comfortable.

Tony Judt

#10. Yes, etiquette is hypocritical. Yes, it does inhibit children - if you're lucky. But the idea that it's elitist and irrelevant is like saying language is elitist and irrelevant.

Judith Martin

#11. There's something quite joyful about doing comedy which doesn't really need much analysis. I'm not elitist. I like to do crowd-pleasing stuff which is a bit smart, but is just about belly laughs.

Steve Coogan

#12. I try to make films, not movies. I've never liked the expression 'movie', but it sounds elitist to say that.

Ridley Scott

#13. I had a very elitist, snobbish, expensive education in India, and that almost destroyed me.

Bunker Roy

#14. People perceive opera and classical as elitist - I disagree. I've always tried to mix the two, make it more accessible.

Katherine Jenkins

#15. Be egalitarian regarding persons. Be elitist regarding ideas.

Peter Kreeft

#16. As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

H.L. Mencken

#17. Rock is for everybody; it should be so implicitly anti-elitist that the question of whether somebody's qualified to perform it should never even arise.

Lester Bangs

#18. In contrast, upgrading the healthy is an elitist project, because it rejects the idea of a universal standard applicable to all and seeks to give some individuals an edge over others. People want superior memories, above-average intelligence and first-class sexual abilities.

Yuval Noah Harari

#19. A "racist" thinks themselves better than other races. An "elitist" thinks they are better than everyone.

A.E. Samaan

#20. I feel strong in my belief, based on my widely traveled collaborations, that a one-to-one contact through art contains potent peaceful powers, and is the most non-elitist way to share information, hopefully seducing us into creating mutual understandings for the benefit of all.

Robert Rauschenberg

#21. If you want to read anything nasty about me, just go to the backpacker websites. There's this kind of elitist branch where they really believe that I had no business going backpacking.

Cheryl Strayed

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

David Ives

#23. Art is not an elitist gift for a few select people. Art is for everyone.

Richard Attenborough

#24. You cannot live your life in the elitist world of fashion and not step out or you're disconnected. You have to realize that fashion is not the endgame.

Andre Leon Talley

#25. 'Elitist' doesn't need to mean wealthy and conservative; it can also mean specialised and rarefied, and that's no bad thing.

Mark Morris

#26. I always wanted the films to play in malls, and I wanted as many people as possible to see them. I never want them to be marginalized in the kind of rarefied, elitist world. I always have hopes that the films will permeate culture in a big way. A lot of times, I'm wrong, but it's always the hope.

Harmony Korine

#27. There's something in life that's cool, it's relatively cheap, and fun, and populist. Even when it's elitist.

Stephen Malkmus

#28. The mainstream thrust of anti-intellectualism, as it stands today, characterizes thinking itself as an elitist activity.

Maggie Nelson

#29. I've worked with some great orchestras and amazing classical musicians, but I don't like the conceptualization of classical music as an elitist form of art.

Serj Tankian

#30. This country has always been run by elite, and it's an elitist democracy. And that's not a radical concept. It's elitist democracy. When people talk about democracy, they don't talk - really talk about participatory democracy, until the point that we get us at Election Day.

Danny Glover

#31. I miss the reference section at the library. I used to go there twice a week on missions. Now everywhere's a research library and I can't get an elitist kick from it any more.

Douglas Coupland

#32. I don't understand why they call it public broadcasting. As far as I am concerned, there's nothing public about it; it's an elitist enterprise. 'Rush Limbaugh' is public broadcasting.

Newt Gingrich

#33. To conceive music, to execute it in front of others, to make it so others can do it ... it can be pretty humbling, and kind of scary. So yeah, I don't really feel in competition with anybody. Not because I feel elitist, but because I have enough self-competition. I'm always struggling.

Ryan Adams

#34. 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.

Florence King

#35. She was an uptight elitist bitch who considered fast food unworthy of being fed to dogs, but when she did something she did it wholeheartedly, with perverse gusto, as if to show she was so far beyond irony she'd circled back to authenticity.

Leah Raeder

#36. In a gallery, there's an expectation of high prices and a somewhat elitist atmosphere.

Will Cotton

#37. The NRA made an ad saying that Obama is elitist because his kids have armed guards. Yeah, that crazy Obama thinking his kids need special protection. I love the NRA accusing anyone of being paranoid. It's like a septic tank saying, 'You need a mint.'

Bill Maher

#38. It is, of course, the first recourse of every elitist to see social barbarism in others.

Graham Joyce