Donald T. Regan Quotes

Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines and Populace; and America is just ourselves with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly.

It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob.

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

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

Being a posh actor in England you cannot escape the class-typing from whatever side you look at it.

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.'

A chair's function is not just to provide a place to sit; it is to provide a medium for self-expression. Chairs are about status, for example. Or signalling something about oneself. That's why the words chair, seat and bench have found themselves used to describe high status professions, from academia to Parliament to the law.

Of course the lower classes have always felt downtrodden and aspired to a better life. But there is this theory that people respond to a class structure in England - there was a time when people knew who they were and knew whom they served and as long as management wasn't abusive, it was a good life for people.

Class is more important than a game.

At present there is no distinction among the upper ten thousand of the city.

On the battlefield, there is no distinction between upper and lower class.

The tradesmen are the only gentry in England.

In modern civilized communities... the members of each stratum accept as their ideal of decency the scheme of life in vogue in the next higher stratum.

One notable feature is that English doesn't have much of a system for expressing relative social status.

We know that the British public are obsessed with class.

It was hard for an American to understand the contented acceptance by English men and women of permanent places in the lowest social rank.

Having gone to a public school, I thought I knew about posh people. But I didn't know anything until I went to Oxford.

There's an unspoken rule in affluent circles that suggests you can always define an individual's status by measuring his or her proximity to the most influential person in the room. And as the maxim goes, closer is always better.

The Social Register is a nice address book for some people, but that's about it.

In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society, it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to give, early in your youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that, be a snob.

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

May not the complaint, that common people are above their station, often take its rise in the fact of uncommon people being below theirs?

I've never felt entirely comfortable in high society. I'm more comfortable talking to the bar staff than the super-rich. I don't really get what makes them tick.

England is obsessed with where you came from, and they are determined to keep you in that place, be it in a drawing room or in the gutter.

Language does not make one an elite.