“The history of man is the history of the continuous replacement of certain elites: as one ascends, another declines.”
Vilfredo Pareto
The Rise and Fall of Elites (Primary source)
Pareto’s central argument is that all societies are governed by a ruling elite—a minority that holds power and wealth—but that no elite endures indefinitely.
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“Except during short intervals of time, peoples are always governed by an elite. I use the word elite (It. aristrocrazia) in its etymological sense, meaning the strongest, the most energetic, and most capable—for good as well as evil. However, due to an important physiological law, elites do not last. Hence, the history of man is the history of the continuous replacement of certain elites: as one ascends, another declines. Such is the real phenomenon, though to us it may often appear under another form.”
Vilfredo Pareto
”History is a graveyard of aristocracies.”
— Vilfredo Pareto Primary source“The new elite which seeks to supersede the old one, or merely to share its power and honors, does not admit to such an intention frankly and openly.”
— Vilfredo Pareto Primary source“When it is useful to them, men can believe a theory of which they know nothing more than its name.”
— Vilfredo Pareto Primary source“Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason. And so they look for, and always find, some theory which, a posteriori, makes their actions appear to be logical. If that theory could be demolished scientifically, the only result would be that another theory would be substituted for the first one, and for the same purpose.”
— Vilfredo Pareto Primary sourceMore quotes by Vilfredo Pareto →
“History, in the objective meaning of the word, is the process of change; in the subjective meaning, it is the study of how and why one situation changes into another.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man.”
— Leonardo da Vinci Primary source“These Secret Service people always seemed to have time for sex however important their jobs might be.”
— Ian Fleming Primary sourceElites History Aristocracies Class