"Oligarchical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... citizens, with whom the majority of the citizens themselves are, however, perfectly satisfied. But, in truth, that "self-government" is the head and front of their offence, for is it not a stumbling-block to ministerial and oligarchical influence? In addition to the power of enacting by-laws, the Common Council superintend the disposal of the funds of the Corporation; and without their previous consent no larger sum than 100 pounds can be paid for any purpose whatsoever. Their executive functions are also considerable. ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... somewhat dimmed by your experience as a critic. The critics are the few. They have infinitely more culture than the many. But when a man of real genius appears and asserts himself, the critics are seldom such fair judges of him as the many are. If he be not one of their oligarchical clique, they either abuse, or disparage, or affect to ignore him; though a time at last comes when, having gained the many, the critics acknowledge him. But the difference between the man of action and the author is this, that the author rarely finds this acknowledgment till he is dead, and it is ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... other governments; secondly, the abolition of the 'balia', which was an aristocratic magistracy; thirdly, the establishment of a sovereign council, composed of 1800 citizens; and lastly, the substitution of popular elections for drawing by lot and for oligarchical nominations: these changes had been effected in spite of two other factions, the 'Arrabiati', or Madmen, who, consisting of the richest and noblest youths of the Florentine patrician families, desired to have an oligarchical ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... us have a true republic—a "government of the people, by the people, for the people," and we shall hear no more the oligarchical cry of croaking conservatism calling for a "white man's government"—appealing by this, and like slogans of class and caste to the lowest and meanest principles of human nature, dangerous alike to real republicanism and true democracy. Expediency, that great pretext for the infringement of human ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... natural instinct not commoners. For my part I pardon the People its own democracy, as, indeed, it is pardonable in any one to do good to himself. (29) But the man who, not being himself one of the People, prefers to live in a state democratically governed rather than in an oligarchical state may be said to smooth his own path towards iniquity. He knows that a bad man has a better chance of slipping through the fingers of justice in a democratic than ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon
... alteration is so far from such a corruption of manners as should render them incapable of a commonwealth, that of necessity they must thereby contract such a reformation of manners as will bear no other kind of government. On the other side, where the balance changes from popular to oligarchical or monarchical, the public interest, with the reason and justice included in the sane, becomes more private; luxury is introduced in the room of temperance, and servitude in that of freedom, which causes such ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... families of his native town. His father, Jacob de Witt, was six times burgomaster of Dort, and for many years sat as a representative of the town in the states of Holland. He was a strenuous adherent of the republican or oligarchical states-right party in opposition to the princes of the house of Orange, who represented the federal principle and had the support of the masses of the people. John was educated at Leiden, and early displayed remarkable talents, more especially in mathematics and jurisprudence. In 1645 he ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... Second had been strongly opposed by the oligarchical party. His life had terminated in the year 1650, amidst great civil troubles. He died childless: the adherents of his house were left for a short time without a head; and the powers which he had exercised were divided among the Town Councils, the Provincial States, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... point help came in the shape of a law enacted by the old, unreformed, oligarchic-Tory parliament, a law which never could have passed the House of Commons later, when the Reform Bill had legally sanctioned the distinction between bourgeoisie and proletariat, and made the bourgeoisie the ruling class. This was enacted in 1824, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... Solon and Clisthenes, developed by Themistocles and Pericles, it was temporarily overthrown at the end of the Peloponnesian War; but the evil rule then of the "Thirty Tyrants" has proved a better lesson on the evils of oligarchic rule than a thousand rhetoricians' declamations upon the advantages of the "rule of the many" as against the "rule of the few." Attica now acknowledges only one Lord—KING DEMOS—"King Everybody"—and until the coming of bondage to Macedon there will be no serious ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis |
