John Fowles Quotes

The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.

Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.

One often has need of one, inferior to himself.

With most people, strangers are not only enemies, but inferiors.

Men and nations cannot bear to feel inferior.

How many, even of the better sort, would choose to be slaves to those above them, provided they might exercise an arbitrary and tyrannical rule over all below them?

Only those beneath me can envy or hate me. I have never been envied nor hated; I am above no one. Only those above me can praise or belittle me. I have never been praised nor belittled; I am below no one.

Power seems to confer on its possessor a mantle of superiority, specialness, and sexual potency, which the envious person desperately wants because he feels himself on some level to be inferior, unimportant, and impotent.

Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man, by lifting his head high, can pretend that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down on him from above.

The mind is lowered through association with inferiors. With equals it attains equality; and with superiors, superiority.

Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow.

Doesn't make any difference who we are or what we are, there's always somebody to look down on.

Only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way. Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity.

I only want to debate people who are more powerful than I am.

I think there's always going to be some kind of bigotry or some kind of racism. There has to be, because people can't feel that they have any hero qualities unless there's someone beneath them.

There are certain people you're allowed to pick apart and certain people you're not.

This idea of walls, segregation, labels, and 'You against us' and 'We are superior and you are inferior.' Which people are legitimate? Which relationships are legitimate or not? Who declares that under which authority? These are things that are hugely important.

When human beings say they have power, it always makes me laugh a little bit.

When it comes to personal appearance, people are quick to cast judgment on people who look better than them. It's part of the human inferiority complex.

Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low.

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.

To strive with an equal is dangerous; with a superior, mad; with an inferior, degrading.

Any one prominent in affairs can always see when a man may steal a horse and when a man may not look over a hedge.

I will rather suffer a thousand wrongs than offer one. I have always found that to strive with a superior is injurious; with an equal, doubtful; with an inferior, sordid and base; with any, full of unquietness.