Phil Donahue Quotes

There are no human beings whose sense of social identity is fully and exclusively given for themselves by the membership of the working (or any other) class

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

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've got to be high class... Which is sad, because I like bars.

I certainly never get above my station - my family would soon slap me back down to earth.

It was always understood that plants and animals, though completely contrasted in their higher representatives, approached each other very closely in their lower and simpler forms. But they were believed not to blend.

The former conviction that these two kingdoms were wholly different in structure, in function, and in kind of life, was not seriously disturbed by the difficulties which the naturalist encountered when he undertook to define them.

As I look back now I can see that I was a perfect little aristocrat.

The common people are more disposed to trust one of their own class [in political office] than those who may efect to be superior.

There are five kinds of great apes: bonobos, chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, and the one which people always think of last: Humans!

Jean Jacques Rousseauis nothing but a fool in my eyes when he takes it upon himself to criticise society; he did not understand it, and approached it with the heart of an upstart flunkey.... For all his preaching a Republic and the overthrow of monarchical titles, the upstart is mad with joy if a Duke alters the course of his after-dinner stroll to accompany one of his friends.

O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!

There are no persons more solicitous about the preservation of rank than those who have no rank at all. Observe the humors of a country christening, and you will find no court in Christendom so ceremonious as the quality of Brentford.

An immense percentage of snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life.

The whole strength of England lies in the fact that the enormous majority of the English people are snobs.

When aristocrats pretend they're common people -- they get common!

ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ("Musca maledicta"). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother has not come down to us.

Humility in furs is better than pride in tunics.

I think a snob would be a person who thinks he is entitled; he has good things in his life and is entitled to them.

Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.

You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter - a girl brought up with the utmost care - to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel?

There is a universal respect and even admiration for those who are humble and simple by nature, and who have absolute confidence in all human beings irrespective of their social status.

If you've been fat, you will always feel and see the world as a fat person; you know how difficult it is... It's the same coming from a working-class background... it never leaves you.

Lawyers belong to the people by birth and interest, and to the aristocracy by habit and taste; they may be looked upon as the connecting link of the two great classes of society.

The higher type of man clings to virtue, the lower type of man clings to material comfort. The higher type of man cherishes justice, the lower type of man cherishes the hope of favors to be received.