George Orwell Quotes

Ah, beware of snobbery; it is the unwelcome recognition of one's own past failings.

We had enough quite enough snobbery in this world without exporting it to the hereafter.

The word snob belongs to the sour-grape vocabulary.

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.

The true snob never rests; there is always a higher goal to attain, and there are, by the same token, always more and more people to look down upon.

I won't say there aren't any Harvard graduates who have never asserted a superior attitude. But they have done so to our great embarrassment and in no way represent the Harvard I know.

Show me an elitist, and I'll show you a loser.

Don't get me wrong - intellectual snobbery is vulgar and gauche.

Manners have been somewhat cynically defined to be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a distance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions. Society is very swift in its instincts, and if you do not belong to it, resists and sneers at you, or quietly drops you.

Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God holds others in contempt.

I'm not a snob. Ask anybody-well, anybody who matters.

I love Virginians because Virginians are all snobs and I like snobs. A snob has to spend so much time being a snob that he has little time left to meddle with you.

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

Self-confidence is apt to address itself to an imaginary dullness in others; as people who are well off speak in a cajoling tone to the poor.

There is no good in living in a society where you are merely the equal of everybody else. The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.

For someone who’s made it clear that her life is superior to every other student’s at this school, you sure make it a habit of pursuing every facet of our boring, worthless lives.

In the field of snobbery, Australia is an underdeveloped country; even a few British ex-colonies, regarded as under developed in all other respects, could export a great deal of snobbery to Australia and still have enough to spare for their own, internal needs.

Snobbery is not merely a silly human weakness but something basic in the mentality of modern man-a symptom which reflects the general sickness, the dislocation of social and cultural values in contemporary civilization.

When you by nature subscribe to the view that everyone except yourself is a berk or a wanker, it is hard to bond with anybody in any rational common cause.

The best manners are stained by haughtiness.

Although the rudiments of snobbery are there, its finer developments are basically alien to the Australian soul - that is, if Australians have a soul; many people believe that they are too matter-of-fact and down-to-earth to have such fancy commodities.

... the belief in a superstratum of human beings ... is the most evil of all beliefs. For when you say, 'I am not as other men' -- you have lost the two most valuable qualities we have ever tried to attain: -- humility and brotherhood.

Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.