Snobbishness Quotes

• Snobbishness, like hypocrisy, is a check upon behaviour whose value from a social point of view has been underrated.

  George Orwell

  Views, Hypocrisy, Behaviour

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.247, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• These people seemed so enwrapped in snobbishness and the glory of being rich that they had no art sense whatever.

  Isadora Duncan

  Art, People, Rich

  Isadora Duncan (2013). “My Life (Revised and Updated)”, p.33, W. W. Norton & Company

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• I suppose there is no place in the world where snobbery is quite so ever-present or where it is cultivated in such refined and subtle forms as in an English public school. Here at least one cannot say that English ‘education’ fails to do its job. You forget your Latin and Greek within a few months of leaving school — I studied Greek for eight or ten years, and now, at thirty-three, I cannot even repeat the Greek alphabet — but your snobbishness, unless you persistently root it out like the bindweed it is, sticks by you till your grave.

  George Orwell

  Jobs, Latin, School

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1986). “The Complete Works of George Orwell: The road to Wigan Pier”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The true snob never rests; there is always a higher goal to attain, and there are, by the same token, always more and more people to look down upon.

  Russell Lynes

  Truth, Class, People

  Russell Lynes (1966). “Confessions of a dilettante”

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them.

  John Buchan

  Men, Definitions, Snob

  John Buchan (2016). “RICHARD HANNAY Complete Collection – 7 Mystery & Espionage Books in One Volume (Unabridged): The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle, Mr Standfast, The Three Hostages, The Island of Sheep, The Courts of the Morning & The Green Wildebeest”, p.1555, e-artnow

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• What people value in their books—and thus what they count as literature—really tells you more about them than it does about the book.

  Brent Weeks

  Book, People, Doe

  14 Copy quote

• Silence is difficult and arduous, it is not to be played with.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Silence, Difficult, Silence Is

  Jiddu Krishnamurti (1992). “The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti, (1962-1963): A Psychological Revolution”, p.211, Krishnamurti Foundation of America

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• There’s no snobbery like that of the poor toward one another.

  Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  Poor, Snobbery

  Dorothy Salisbury Davis (2014). “Lullaby of Murder”, p.134, Open Road Media

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I went to good schools, and I've just always had an allergic reaction to snobbishness - always found myself preferring to blend into the woodwork. I have an affinity to those who, in a sense, failed.

  Larry Fessenden

  School, Good School

  Source: film.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Contrary to popular opinion, classical music does not have to be enjoyed amid exclusive circles, there need not be any snobbishness attached to it. It's there for everyone. I play for the people.

  Andre Rieu

  Play, Circles, People

  14 Copy quote

• I cannot bear to think that our young men are merely living four years in a country club and spending their lives wholly in a spirit of calculation and snobbishness.

  John Grier Hibben

  Country, Men, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• The art business is a rarified business and appeals to an audience capable of spending money on a luxury. Too often the atmosphere in a gallery borders on snobbishness.

  Scott Kahn

  Art, Luxury, Atmosphere

  4 Copy quote

• Few countries have produced such arrogance and snobbishness as America. Particularly is this true of the American woman of the middle class. She not only considers herself the equal of man, but his superior, especially in her purity, goodness, and morality. Small wonder that the American suffragist claims for her vote the most miraculous powers. In her exalted conceit she does not see how truly enslaved she is, not so much by man, as by her own silly notions and traditions. Suffrage can not ameliorate that sad fact; it can only accentuate it, as indeed it does.

  Emma Goldman

  Country, Silly, Men

  Emma Goldman (2016). “Anarchy and the Sex Question: Essays on Women and Emancipation, 1896–1926”, p.57, PM Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The fetish of the great university, of expensive colleges for young women, is too often simply a fetish. It is not based on a genuine desire for learning. Education today need not be sought at any great distance. It is largely compounded of two things, of a certain snobbishness on the part of parents, and of escape from home on the part of youth. And to those who must earn quickly it is often sheer waste of time. Very few colleges prepare their students for any special work.

  Mary Roberts Rinehart

  Distance, Home, College

  6 Copy quote

• You can be slum-born and slum-bred and still achieve something worth while; but it is a stupid inverted snobbishness to be proud of it. If one had a right to be proud of anything, it would be of a continued decent tradition back of one.

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould

  Stupid, Pride, Proud

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1920). “Modes and Morals”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I like the Americans for a great many reasons. I like them because even the modern thing called industrialism has not entirely destroyed in them the very ancient thing called democracy. I like them because they have a respect for work which really curbs the human tendency to snobbishness.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  America, Democracy, Ancient

  4 Copy quote

• As we are concerned with what others think of us, so we are anxious to know all about them; and from this arise the crude and subtle forms of snobbishness and the worship of authority. Thus we become more and more externalized and inwardly empty. The more externalized we are, the more sensations and distractions there must be, and this gives rise to a mind that is never quiet, that is not capable of deep search and discovery.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Thinking, Discovery, Giving

  Jiddu Krishnamurti (2010). “Commentaries on Living 2”, p.14, M-y books ltd

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Silence is difficult and arduous; it is not to be played with. It isn't something that you can experience by reading a book, or by listening to a talk, or by sitting together, or by retiring into a wood or a monastery. I am afraid none of these things will bring about this silence. This silence demands intense psychological work. You have to be burningly aware - aware of your speech, aware of your snobbishness, aware of your fears, your anxieties, your sense of guilt. And when you die to all that, then out of that dying comes the beauty of silence.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Book, Reading, Silence

  "Talks by Krishnamurti in Europe 1962 (Verbatim Report) London, Saanen". Jiddu Krishnamurti's seventh public talk in London, jkrishnamurti.org. June 19, 1962.

  43 Copy quote

  Show source