George Bernard Shaw Quotes

Abstraction and luxury are the guard dogs of the upper class.

Aristocracy is a relative thing. And there are plenty of out-of-the-way places where the son of an upholsterer is the arbiter of fashion and reigns over a court like any young Prince of Wales.

Social class means a hell of a lot and upper class people - no matter how well [Franklin ] Roosevelt did - it was stylish to hate him.

The Social Register is a nice address book for some people, but that's 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.

Everything is always grungy in England, no? It's like a little shibboleth of the upper class, wearing something out of your grandfather's trunk.

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

My father grew up in a life of extreme privilege.

I hate when people call me a socialite because you have to have money to be a socialite, which I don't have.

'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.

Money doesn't buy class.

I come from a real working class background, and I didn't know anyone sophisticated - except I saw Edie Sedgewick once at the Art Museum in Philly. She had these black leotards and little black pumps and this big ermine cape and all these white dogs and black sunglasses and black eyes. She was classy!

I never know what defines you as being posh. I went to a posh school, definitely.

At present there is no distinction among the upper ten thousand of the city.

I don't think I met anyone posh until I went to London.

I came from an affluent family, am well-known and well-read.

NOBLEMAN, n. Nature's provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life.

We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.

Wherever the appearance of a conventional aristocracy exists in America, it must arise from wealth, as it cannot from birth. An aristocracy of mere wealth is vulgar everywhere. In a republic, it is vulgar in the extreme.

I have never been So insulted in all my life I could swallow the seas To wash down all this pride First you run like a fool Just to be at my side And now you run like a fool But you just run to hide.

Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat.

Snobbery has gone out of fashion, and in our shops you will find duchesses jostling with typists to buy the same dress.

Tired, ashamed, and mortified, I begged to sit down till we returned home, which I did soon after. Lord Orville did me the honour to hand me to the coach, talking all the way of the honour I had done him ! O these fashionable people!

My husband's family was terribly refined. Within their circle you could know Beethoven, but God forbid if you were Beethoven.

These families, you know, are our upper crust, not upper ten thousand.