"Oligarchic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the breath of his spirit from a creed which made a wall of crystal around the elect. The two forces between them produced this potent and slender figure, swift, scornful, dainty and full of dry magnanimity; and it only needed the last touch of oligarchic mastery to be given by the overwhelming oligarchic atmosphere of our present age. Such was the Puritan Irishman who stepped out into the world. Into what kind of world ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... wealthy and populous that they were able to wrest charters from the lords. Thus arose a number of municipalities—practically self- governing republics—semi-independent vassals of feudal nobles; and in many cases the early oligarchic systems of municipal government speedily gave way to more democratic institutions. Remarkable in industry and prosperity were Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Brussels, Liege, Utrecht, Delft, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... to say that Lord Valleys was afraid of his son. Fear was not one of his emotions, but he certainly regarded him with a respectful curiosity that bordered on uneasiness. The oligarchic temper of Miltoun's mind and political convictions almost shocked one who knew both by temperament and experience how to wait in front. This instruction he had frequently had occasion to give his jockeys when he believed his horses could ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... circumstances imperial policy lost much of its prestige, and imperial problems either vanished or were evaded. It was a period of "crown colony" administration.[2] The connexion, as it was called, was maintained through oligarchic {5} institutions, strictly controlled from Westminster; local officials were selected from little groups of semi-aristocrats, more English than the home government itself; and the only policy which recommended itself to a nation, which still lacked both information and ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... Which [like all Bills this favoured statesman frames, And clothes with tapestries of rhetoric Disguising their real web of commonplace] Though held as shaped for English bulwarking, Breathes in its heart perversities of party, And instincts toward oligarchic power, Galling the many ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... of the fact that so many are titled persons, highly connected and frequently well off. But after the great Revolution and the Napoleonic times officialdom lost its influence and social importance in Holland in consequence of the demolition of the oligarchic, patrician Republic; and clause five of the Netherlands constitution, which declares that 'Every Netherlander may be appointed to every public office,' is a very real and true description of the actual, visible facts of ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... upon a fact: they appealed to evidences not to speculations; to usage, not to argument. They were in possession, and fought against change, not as inconsistent with a theory, but as hostility to an interest. In the contest of Caesar with the oligarchic knavery of Cicero, Cato, and Pompey, no possible exercise of representative functions (had the people possessed them) could have been applied beneficially to the settlement of the question at issue. Law, and the abuses of law, good statutes and evil customs, had equally ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... treatise on government which is perhaps the most judicious and instructive of all his writings, left us a warning against a class of laws artfully framed to delude the vulgar, democratic in seeming, but oligarchic in effect. [374] Had he had an opportunity of studying the history of the English constitution, he might easily have enlarged his list of such laws. That men who are in the service and pay of the Crown ought not to sit in an assembly specially charged with the duty ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
