Evan Davis Quotes

At dinner parties I sit below the salt now. There are a lot of interesting people there.

A Rolex watch or an expensive car are the things guys often use to show status, wealth, and basic desirability.

Horses and horsepower alike are about status and being cool.

Class is more important than a game.

Consumers do not want a perceived cheap car; they want a car to flaunt. A car is as much about status and identity as it is about transport.

In the schools of small Midwestern towns, the only aristocracies are of beauty, intelligence, and athletic prowess.

You can be a rank insider as well as a rank outsider.

It is the dissimilarities and inequalities among men which give rise to the notion of honor; as such differences become less, it grows feeble; and when they disappear, it will vanish too.

In Europe, you would almost never have people with large amounts of income being happy with a two-volume vehicle like a hatchback or a minivan. They want to structurally show their societal position, which is why three volumes are so popular. They show 'I'm part of that hierarchy.'

I believe in status symbols.

Throughout history, clothes represented who you were; they are a great vehicle for explaining who you are. During the Ching dynasty, for example, what you wore and how it was made reflected your status in society. People could literally read your clothes like a book, just by its color and how it was embroidered.

There was a time when formal clothes were one of life's great pleasures, as well as a way of describing instantly a man's status wealth. Toffs wore the most, the proles the least. Fast forward to 2008 and clothes are still an unrivalled pleasure but some men - and this includes many of our betters - have confused status with fake informality.

Many Indians turned to the gun for the same reason as did some Europeans: the prestige attached to them. Indians, like many members of the European elite, owned guns not simply because they served a function but as a symbol of power and wealth

The difference between being a rich guy in America and a rich guy in Europe is that in America people look up to you for being rich.

A Plowman on his knees is higher than a Gentleman on his legs.

People assume that I'm an aristocrat, but I don't really feel part of any class.

I learned early that class is universally admired.

Now, as in the past, rank is closely associated with modes of representation and display: with making an ordered arrangement of people or things visible and evident to onlookers in some fashion.

There is always a reason behind things that are made, and if there isn't, there will be one when they travel through the world. The objects of beauty are used to impress, seduce, overwhelm, make money, support identities, and show power or style, among other things.

For the Anglo-Saxons, food determined a person's position in society.

Watches are about status.

Clothes are incredibly symbolic.

as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.

Social standing does not necessarily translate to social acceptance.

The gift derives its value from the rank of the giver.