George Bernard Shaw Quotes

Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die, But leave us still our old nobility.

I am an aristocrat. I love liberty; I hate equality.

Neither money nor position can atone to me for low birth.

What is high birth to him to whom high birth has never been the theme of his contemplation? What is a throne to him who has never dreamed of a throne?

Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.

I like aristocracy. I like the beauty of aristocracy. I like the hierarchical feeling.

I have wondered sometimes if there are not perhaps some disadvantages in having really blue blood in one's veins, like grandmamma and me.

I was no Marie Antoinette. I was not born to nobility, but I had a human right to nobility.

There is no distinction of persons among them, and deference is shown to merit rather than to noble blood.

What is the use of your pedigrees?

Great families of yesterday we show, And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who.

Of distinction by birth or badge, [Americans] had no more idea than they had of the mode of existence in the moon or planets. They had heard only that there were such, and knew that they must be wrong.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

By ancestry, I was born to rule.

There's an unhealthy obsession in America with royalty and the class system.

The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.

I'm proud of being British, but I think our aristocracy is overrated.

Americans sometimes say to me that they have no class system themselves. All human beings have class systems. It can be based on a different thing in a different country, but the thing about breeding is, you can't buy it. You can't buy class.

Aristocracy is naturally abhorrent to me, and adored equality is my idol.

All shall equal be. The Earl, the Marquis, and the Dook, The Groom, the Butler, and the Cook, The Aristocrat who banks with Coutts, The Aristocrat who cleans the boots.

There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents;... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy.

The Pedigree of Honey Does not concern the Bee- A Clover, any time, to him, Is Aristocracy-

Kings! Why, what's a king? .... Is their blood purer than our own? We are all the seed of Abraham!

The great families have their privileges.

Noble and common blood is of the same color.