Both aristocracy and democracy are human ideals: the one saying that all men are valuable, the other that some men are more valuable.
 G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908). copy citation

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Author G. K. Chesterton
Source Orthodoxy
Topic democracy aristocracy
Date 1908
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/130/pg130-images.html

Context

“also there is no inequality in nature. Inequality, as much as equality, implies a standard of value. To read aristocracy into the anarchy of animals is just as sentimental as to read democracy into it. Both aristocracy and democracy are human ideals: the one saying that all men are valuable, the other that some men are more valuable. But nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have” source