Elite Mentality Quotes

The question for the anointed is not knowledge but compassion, commitment, and other such subjective factors which supposedly differentiate themselves from other people. The refrain of the anointed is we already know the answers, there’s no need for more studies, and the kinds of questions raised by those with other views are just stalling and obstructing progress. “Solutions” are out there waiting to be found, like eggs at an Easter egg hunt. Intractable problems with painful trade-offs are simply not part of the vision of the anointed. Problems exists only because other people are not as wise or as caring, or not as imaginative and bold, as the anointed.

They're smart in Orange County. Smart and rich - just how I like 'em.

it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than thesquarerootofminusone. You and I are human beings; mostpeople are snobs.

Nothing appeals to intellectuals more than the feeling that they represent 'the people'. Nothing, as a rule, is further from the truth

People desire power. I don't know why they want it so. It seems to me it implies a hugely superior intellect which separates them from most of the populace.

If you belong to an in-group of good, or saved, or elite people, you can only know that you’re in because someone else is out. You cannot live on the right side of the tracks without there being a wrong side of the tracks, so you ought to be grateful to the outside for having the privilege of being on the inside.

An elite is someone who's for themselves and not for the country.

There's a segment of this world, there's a mind state that's permeated the intellectual consciousness of this world that comes from a certain type of people that looks at me and you and your average individual as a problem - like a blight on an otherwise potential paradise, something that needs to be cured.

The duke contents himself mainly with attempting to rule the world and other suchlike nonsense. When one is guiding the patterns of the social universe, a single spinster preternatural is unlikely to cause one undue distress.

People with advantages are loath to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.

People who become 'elite' at what they do aren't striving to be 'elite' just to join some special club. They take great joy and satisfaction in the pursuit of mastery, and they compete against themselves, not others.

'I don't need brains,' says the billionaire contemptuously. 'I'm brainy enough myself!' The broker cries out in desperation, 'What, in heaven's name, do you want?' 'Goodness,' is the answer.

Only the elites despise earning money.

Maybe it’s that silver spoon in his [Mitt Romney’s] mouth that keeps him from seeing why the middle class doesn’t pull itself up by its bootstraps, like he did when Daddy loaned him his first million dollars.

At Harvard, where students tend to respond to real-world celebrities with the vague sense that they could do a better job themselves, the recipe for celebrity is complex.

The theory in great families was 'why work if you don't have to.' Being a public figure was reserved for movie stars.

He shrugged. "The same as any other. It's a way to make people feel better about themselves. Everyone likes feeling special. Being part of an elite group is a way to do that." "But you weren't part of it?" "No need. I already know I'm special.

Above all, there is no exception to this rule: that the idea of political superiority always resolves itself into the idea of psychological superiority.

When you are an elite talent, you cannot allow anyone that comes into your 'eliteness' and take you down. You have to make them rise to your level.

I'm never satisfied, I always want to do better. That's how it is to be an elite athlete, you're never happy. When you start getting happy and you start feeling satisfied, you're done.