Charles Dickens Quotes

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

I'm not interested in classes ... Far be it from me to foster inferiority complexes among the workers by trying to make them think they belong to some special class.

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

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

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

The biggest crime in England is to rise above your station. It's fine to be a pop star. 'Oh, it's great, lots of fun, aren't they sweet, these pop stars! But to think you have anything to say about how the world should work? What arrogance!'

I don't believe in social equality, and they know it.

The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.

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.

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

I don't like class distinction, and there is far too much of that in England.

I'm not exceptional. I didn't grow up with privilege.

It was hugely helpful to me, being South African. I have never felt uncomfortable in posh society because I don't see what it is that I'm meant to be bowing the knee about.

Class still matters in Britain today.

I don't campaign for the end of the aristocracy or the upper classes; I don't really want to destroy anything at all. I just want more plurality.

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?

Class is real. It can't be faked.

Language does not make one an elite.

I reject absolutely the idea that people should know their place, and know their class.

Class isn't something you buy. Look at you. You have a $500 suit on and you're still a lowlife.

Is class snobbery a social reality in the United States? Absolutely, and the kind that's codified by meritocracy is probably more toxic than the old-fashioned kind based on bloodlines.

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.

There are only two classes - first class and no class.

Class is more important than a game.

You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course.