X. J. Kennedy Quotes

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

Philosophers are men hired by the well-to-do to prove that everything is all right.

One of the surest signs of the Philistine is his reverence for the superior tastes of those who put him down.

I come from an Irish working-class background but went to a posh school, and any type of pretension was quickly mocked at home. I've always had a keen eye for pretension.

I think Hollywood has a class system. The actors are like the inmates, but the truth is they're running the asylum.

Wherever you see a man who gives someone else's corruption, someone else's prejudice as a reason for not taking action himself, you see a cog in The Machine that governs us.

Those looking for ideology in the White House should consider this: For the men who rule our world, rules are for other people.

The conservatives say they are protecting the values of society. They are protecting their privileges.

Nigeria must be one of the very few countries in the world where a man’s source of wealth is of no concern to his neighbors, the public or the government. Once a man is able to dole out money, the churches pray for him, he collects chieftancy titles and hobnobs with those who govern. The message to those who have not made it is clear: just be rich, the ways and means are irrelevant

Long and unchallenged control in everything in the Commonwealth has given many of these gentlemen the perfectly natural feeling that whosoever is not approved by them is ipso facto a person who is either 'dangerous' or lacking in 'judicial temperament' .... They simply cannot realize, and do not, that a long New England ancestry is not prima facie a trusteeship for everything in New England. That is in my judgment the real spring of most of the opposition.

Scratch a pessimist, and you often find a defender of privilege.

The primary object of every elite, or ruling class, is to maintain its own power and privilege.

We have been taught by experience the danger of the levelling spirit.

The great families have their privileges.

Tell it to Sweeney—The Stuyvesants don’t care—much.

A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.

There are two great enemies of thought and progress, the aristocracy of royalty and the aristocracy of gold.

Our elite has not evolved in 20 years, and the instincts of this elite are not democratic.

The threat to men of great dignity, privilege, and pretense is not from the radicals they revile; it is from accepting their own myth.

Sadly, the pernicious ironies of privilege talk are generally lost on those who claim to be most aware of privilege.

Directors assume I'm, like, establishment.

I went to Yale to earn a law degree. But that first year at Yale taught me most of all that I didn't know how the world of the American elite works.

Tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits of wealth, security, and prestige, it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie and accept that it alone is entitled to privilege.

First, one scrambles for wealth. Then, one luxuriates in mocking the effeteness that comes with it.

This is an important thing: People who live in the mainstream and the status quo think that everyone else is there to serve them.