Mary Wortley Montagu Quotes

Titles were symbols, just as impressive buildings were symbols, except that titles, unlike buildings, cost nothing.

The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.

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

I was not to the manor born.

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

Character and class are character and class. Either you have it or you don't.

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

I'm glad I was never an heiress.

There is no stronger craving in the world than that of the rich for titles, except that of the titled for riches.

He's a TV producer, a theatrical impresario, and he wants to be treated as Mr. Windsor but when the going gets rough he wants to be treated like a member of the Royal Family.

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

The Romanoffs are like the other side of 'The Great Gatsby.' 'Gatsby' is about the people who don't have the history but who want it. And 'The Romanoffs' is about the people who have it and don't know what to do with it.

Vulgar and common persons, as they carry nothing out of this world, so they leave nothing in it: they receive no eminency in their birth, they acquire none in their life, they have none when they die, they leave none at their death.

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

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

Celebrity doesn't have anything to do with art or craft. It's about being rich and thinking that you're better than everybody else.

I wasn't born into land or titles, or new money, or an oil rig.

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

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

I always say that the characters in Jane Austen's original books are rather like zombies because they live in this bubble of immense wealth and privilege and no matter what's going on around them they have a singular purpose to maintain their rank and to impress others.

One of the disadvantages of being a patrician is that occasionally you're obliged to act like one.

The theory in great families was 'why work if you don't have to.' Being a public figure was reserved for movie stars.

Don't worry, don't worry. Look at the Astors and the Vanderbilts, all those big society people. They were the worst thieves - and now look at them. It's just a matter of time.