Harlan Ellison Quotes

The typical white intellectual considers himself superior to ordinary white people for two contradictory reasons: a) he constantly proclaims belief in human equality, but they don't ; b) he has a high IQ, but they don't.

No social class, intellectual category or art form is immune to the snob virus.

It makes me sad there is still some intellectual snobbery out there.

There is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain.

I can't stand folk who are all snobby about reality TV.

I don't like intellectuals, or, at least, people who call themselves that way, because I am under the impression that there is always something condescending in their demeanour, and I don't like condescending people.

Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.

What you're saying is that 'I, the superior elite, will take care of you.' Why? Because, you see, that superior, elite group needs to feel superior and elite. And they can't be superior and elite unless you have a whole lot of people down there groveling around. So you keep them down there by feeding them.

There are people who are just very, very sniffy and snobby and have always sort of looked down their noses at me.

The intelligent are to the intelligentsia what a gentleman is to a gent.

I come from a very la-ti-da East Coast intellectual family - or so they think.

To see the futurity of the species has always been the privilege of the intellectual elite, or of those who have learnt from them

an intellectual arrogance and unconscious assumption of superiority.

… a system under which a few supposedly superior intellects, self-appointed, would direct the mating and the movements of the mass of mankind.

… when we know a thing we have only scorn for other people who don’t happen to know it.

Inside the intelligentsia, the pressure of public opinion is overwhelming. Nationalistic loyalty towards the proletariat, and most vicious theoretical hatred of the bourgeoisie, can and often do co-exist with ordinary snobbishness in everyday life.

The Delhi elite doesn't like me because I'm smarter than them.

[R]ights do not belong to men simply as men, but because of the superior qualities, physical, intellectual, moral or political, which are characteristic of certain individuals or races.

They hate you because you act like you're better than they are

The world must be rather a rough place for clever people. Ordinary folk dislike them, and as for themselves, they hate each other most cordially.

I'm not being condescending, I'm too busy thinking about far more important things you wouldn't understand.

Why does that pharmacist have to be two and a half feet higher than everybody else? Who the hell is this guy? "Clear out, everybody. I'm working with pills up here. I'm taking them from this big bottle and then I'm gonna put them in the little bottle. That's my whole job. I can't be down on the floor with you people."

The establishment, both parties, think "Donald Trump may have built buildings and he may have written The Art of the Deal, but he can't do what we did. He can't even understand what we do because he's too stupid." They may not say it that way, but I guarantee you they have that attitude. These are arrogant people. They're very exclusive. It is a very elite, unique group, in their own minds, and they do tell themselves they're special and they're different and they're better.

The uncouth hordes of common men are not fit to recognize duly the merits of those who eclipse their own wretchedness.

I've always had a way with the little people, making it a point to humor them without looking down my nose at their wasted empty lives.