Inherited Status Quotes

Ancestry is most important to those who have done nothing themselves.

Fransisco, you're some kind of very high nobility, aren't you?" He answered, "Not yet. The reason my family has lasted for such a long time is that none of us has ever been permitted to think he is born a d'Anconia. We are expected to become one.

Snobs talk as if they had begotten their own ancestors.

Good birth is a fine thing, but the merit is our ancestors.

I feel despised there, for having so little money; also for once having had so much. I never actually had it, of course. Father had it, and then Richard. But money was imputed to me, the same way crimes are imputed to those who've simply been present at them.

Any titles, money, or privilege you inherit are actually hindrances. They delude you into believing you are owed respect.

The artificial noble shrinks into a dwarf before the noble of nature; and in the few instances (for there are some in all countries) in whom nature, as by a miracle, has survived in aristocracy, those men despise it.

Pedigree and ancestry and what we ourselves have not achieved, I scarcely recognize as our own.

I do not have Sheikh in front of my name.

All nobility in its beginnings was somebody's natural superiority.

My last name may have opened doors, but I have to keep them open.

High birth is an accident, not a virtue.

The family name hasn't fostered my prospects - ever.

We adore titles and heredities in our hearts and ridicule them with our mouths. This is our democratic privilege.

If ancient descent could confer nobility, the lower forms of life would possess it in a greater degree than man.