David Brooks Quotes

Aristocrats need not be rich, but they must be free, and in the modern world freedom grows rarer the more we prate about it.

I always wanted so much glamour in my life, so I have always been obsessed with class, and from dating a few people who were from old money and a few from new money in my 20s, I just sort of became obsessed with this idea of clueless rich people.

Gentility is nothing but Ancient Riches.

I like aristocracy. I like the beauty of aristocracy. I like the hierarchical feeling.

In Singapore, there may be 50 old-money families, but you wouldn't know them to look at them.

People tend to assume that I come from a long line of castle-dwelling gentry and am made of money.

'Posh' is not really political. I didn't want to aim a brickbat at the system. Or to bash Old Etonians. It was always the class and privilege aspect of that world that I was most drawn to. There is something endlessly fascinating about imagining something you could never be involved in.

There is no society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create an aristocracy.

Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die, But leave us still our old nobility.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colors breaking through.

The Trudie Styler that is spoken of is extremely privileged in life and feels that privilege.

At the other end of the spectrum, George Gideon Oliver King Rameses Osborne, the fourteen-year-old novelty Chancellor and future baronet of Ballentaylor and Ballylemon - a man so posh he probably weeps champagne.

Aristocracy's only an admission that certain traits which we call fine - courage and honor and beauty and all that sort of thing - can best be developed in a favorable environment, where you don't have the warpings of ignorance and necessity.

Aristocrats: n. fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts - guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.

Here in England the welfare of the State depends on the conduct of our aristocracy.

A lofty birth or a large fortune portend merit, and cause it to be the sooner noticed.

The rich, like well brought up children, are meant to be seen, not heard.

'Downton Abbey' about upper-class posh people: of course it is.

Upper class to me means you are either born into wealth or you're Royalty.

My father grew up in a life of extreme privilege.

Evolution is what it is. The upper classes have always died out; it's one of the most charming things about them.

I don't understand all about New York society. It's only when they are in trouble that I'm really interested.

I was not to the manor born.

It's the weird thing Eton does - you're at school next to lords and earls and, in my case, Prince William, so you end up being used to dealing with those sorts of people.

There's a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all.