Gordon Brown Quotes

I deeply detest social distinction and snobbery, and in that lies my strong aversion to titular honours.

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

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.

The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.

I always prided myself on being apart from the ruling class. I think it's always important, not just in Washington but in life, to be able to able to balance your sense of belonging with what it's like to be someone who doesn't belong.

I try to not be or associate with elitists.

I hate the noise and hurry inseparable from great Estates and Titles, and look upon both as blessings that ought only to be given to fools, for 'Tis only to them that they are blessings.

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

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.

To detail the real evils of aristocracy, they must be seen in Europe.

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 House of Commons is full of fat and pompous plutocrats…Public schools are cradles of sickening snobbery.

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

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

The great families have their privileges.

I have made you a count and a duke, but I could not make you a gentleman.

Englishmen hate Liberty and Equality too much to understand them. But every Englishman loves a pedigree.

I'm not an aristocrat. I have no idea what that is.

Essentially, Louis XIV created exclusivity. If we look at how we live our lives today, many of us are members of clubs or gyms. We search out exclusivity. He created the world of fashion at Versailles.

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

And if we don't have a test, what we may end up doing is going back to what this country has done before. We could use social class and we still do, but in the 50s, it was, do you have the right last name and are your parents in privileged positions?

Unlike the majority of the writers of his age, La Rochefoucauld was an aristocrat; and this fact gives a peculiar tone to his work.

I didn't go to the lectures. My valet, who was more distinguished than I, went instead.

I don't need any nicknames.