Snobbery Quotes

Thankfully existing only in SMALL pockets within our discipline, is "intellectual" snobbery. It's a hushed but ugly truth that people are made to feel not worthy to be among a certain set – didn't attend the right school or don't have the requisite abbreviations to follow their name. I know what that feels like. Good thing I'm pigheaded, have a bigger vision and committed to my craft, or I would've succumbed to it long ago. That is why when I meet an emerging writer who's serious about developing their craft, I try to encourage them as much as I can. I say IGNORE the highbrow cliques and prove your mettle by growing, accepting balanced feedback and most of all, creating work that will stand the test of time. Period. ~ Sandra Sealy

The Breed never dies. Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery withViolence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature. ~ Alan Bennett

Hypocrisy is the essence of snobbery, but all snobbery is about the problem of belonging. ~ Alexander Theroux

I always tell the fans, 'Screw it! Like what you like. Listen to what you want.' Insisting that one type of music is better than the next is snobbery, and I have no time for that. Check out all the music that's out there. There's great stuff you're probably missing. ~ Corey Taylor

You could not open a book in this library that I have not looked into...it is as much as you can expect from a poor man's daughter. ~ Emily Bronte

All the people I know have been conditioned by snobbery. ~ Louis MacNeice

I stay subjective because that's what I do. That's one of my abilities. I don't need to watch it because I've had the adventure. I don't do low-budget acting. I do the same acting, whether I'm in a Jim Cameron or not. I always try to do good work. There's no snobbery in there ~ Lance Henriksen

Although the rudiments of snobbery are there, its finer developments are basically alien to the Australian soul - that is, if Australians have a soul; many people believe that they are too matter-of-fact and down-to-earth to have such fancy commodities. ~ George Mikes

My parents were very patient with my pretentious little adolescent snobberies. It took me awhile to accept them. ~ Matthew Specktor

One of the nice things about a favorite pop song is that it's an unconditional truce on judgment and musical snobbery. You like the song because you just do, and there need not be any further criticism. ~ Henry Rollins

The Monarchy ... is the secret well from which the flourishing institution of British Snobbery draws its nourishment ~ Kingsley Martin

[General-in-Chief of the army, Lieutenant General Winfield] Scott not only believed that the idea [for a battlefield decoration, to wit, a Medal of Honor, or valor] smacked of Old World vanity, elitism, and snobbery, he also thought that such an award was entirely unnecessary. ~ Russell S. Bonds

I am not convinced within myself that to its core and as a whole, humanity has, as some like to assume, progressed a great deal over the millennia. Human technology? Of course. Human beings? Hardly. ~ Criss Jami

Fashion and snobbery are also valuable as a defense against literary indigestion. Regardless of their quality, it is always better to read a few books carefully than skim through many, and, short of a personal taste which cannot be formed overnight, snobbery is as good a principle of limitation as any other.

I am eternally grateful, for example, to the musical fashion of my youth which prevented me from listening to Italian Opera until I was over thirty, by which age I was capable of really appreciating a world so beautiful and so challenging to my cultural heritage. ~ W.H. Auden

Whenever summer rolls around I begin to realize that I'm a complete and utter book snob. In relation to reading, I have absolutely no guilty pleasures at all. No graphic novels. No murder mysteries. My summer read is really no different from my winter read. I know many bookshops and magazines would have me believe that our summer forays are different, but literature is literature, and unfortunately snobbery is snobbery. ~ Colum McCann

Racism is the snobbery of the poor. ~ Raymond Aron

We must never confuse elegance with snobbery ~ Yves Saint-Laurent

Increasingly, to dismiss any popular artistic style is seen as the worst kind of snobbery. And snobbery, it goes without saying, is unacceptable in a diverse and democratic world. ~ Russell Smith

If a community bends over backward to be publicly liberal, it can give itself the bonus of private snobbery. ~ Penelope Ashe

I think snobbery is one of the oldest customs in the world, and the rich will always find ways to rank each other and make themselves feel more special than others. ~ Kevin Kwan

You grow up with somebody, and he is a success, a big-shot, and you're a failure, but he treats you just the way he always did and hasn't changed a bit. But that is what drives you to it, no matter what names you call yourself while you try to stick the knife in. There is a kind of snobbery of failure. It's a club, it's the old school, it's Skull and Bones, and there is no nasty supercilious twist to a mouth like the twist the drunk gets when he hangs over the bar beside the old pal who has turned out to be a big-shot and who hasn't changed a bit, or when the old pal takes him home to dinner and introduces him to the pretty little clear-eye woman and the healthy kids. ~ Robert Penn Warren

Soaps are great. You learn to work very fast - some say superficially, but that's not really true. You do some very serious character work. I've never had any feelings about a stigma attached to it, and nowadays there seems to be less snobbery about what you do. More and more big names are doing TV and commercials and voiceovers. ~ Charles Shaughnessy

My snobbery made me do it. ~ John Lithgow

The bus was crowded, standing room only, and he clung apelike from a bar that hung down from the ceiling. It was humiliating to be packed in with all these people; it reminded him of a cattle car or worse, a sardine can, or worse...but what could be worse than this? ~ Joseph G. Peterson

He cut right through the layers of civilization, politeness, and social snobbery to some preternatural female sense that said, "Dominant male. Danger. Power. Sex." Why ~ Ilona Andrews

There was really a snobbery from people in film - they did not want people who had come from television. It was the poor relation of show business, and especially situation comedy. ~ Sally Field

I can't bear literary snobbery. ~ Sara Sheridan

There is a level of snobbery and fickleness in L.A. ~ Gordon Ramsay

In TV, film, and music there's a lot of snobbery, and I don't like it. I've never been a cultural snob. ~ Simon Cowell

My stepmother appeared when I was about 9. My brother was sent off to an institute in Scotland & my sister & I were sent to school. As my stepmother's ideas were then wholly Quaker, mixed with a naive & charming innocence & a little snobbery, it was one dotty epoch on top of another. I always remained terrified of my father. ~ Louis MacNeice

Can I help you?" he said, in a manner which indicated very clearly that not only did he not wish to help them, but also that he resented the implication that he ought to ~ Graham Austin-King

Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair. ~ Joseph Brodsky

I focus on a simple message: when you leave the two-thirds of Americans without college degrees out of your vision of the good life, they notice. And when elites commit to equality for many different groups but arrogantly dismiss "the dark rigidity of fundamentalist rural America,"6 this is a recipe for extreme alienation among working-class whites. Deriding "political correctness" becomes a way for less-privileged whites to express their fury at the snobbery of more-privileged whites. I don't like what this dynamic is doing to America. There are two reasons I think we have to try to replace it with a healthier one. The first is ethical: I am committed to social equality, not for some groups but for all groups. The second is strategic: the hidden injuries of class7 now have become visible in politics so polarized that our democracy is threatened. A few words ~ Joan C. Williams

England is the most class-ridden country under the sun. It is a land of snobbery and privilege, ruled largely by the old and silly. ~ George Orwell

It is better to spend time in one's own company than to consort with people who have no more intelligence than the sheep and goats they herd."
Annoyed by his snobbery, Livia could not resist making a retort. "You are fortunate, then, Mr. Chamberlain. With that attitude, it seems likely that you will indeed be spending a great deal of time in your own company. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Questions, Hypothetical: Needn't be answered. No one knows why.
Schools, Public: They teach you to stand on your own two feet. 'No doors on the lavatories. That sorts the men from the boys'.
Snobbery, Inverted: The worst kind. No need to explain why. ~ William Donaldson

Pentecostals also used sarcasm to gouge their enemies. [Charles] Parham led the way, challenging a local Baptist antagonist who routinely tagged his name with Ph.D., D.D., and LL.D. to come by and spend a week at Parham's school. When God was finished with him, Parham promised, he would want to add 'A.S.S.' to the list. ~ Grant Wacker

'Venti caramel macchiato, please,' he said. 'Hold the snobbery.'
The barista laughed and hit buttons on his register. 'You sure? We're having a sale on social mobility. The longer your coffee order takes to place, the more you have to pay.'
'Perfect. Reverse consumerism.' ~ S.W. Vaughn

One must avoid snobbery and misanthropy. But one must also be unafraid to criticise those who reach for the lowest common denominator, and who sometimes succeed in finding it. This criticism would be effortless if there were no "people" waiting for just such an appeal. Any fool can lampoon a king or a bishop or a billionaire. A trifle more grit is required to face down a mob, or even a studio audience that has decided it knows what it wants and is entitled to get it. And the fact that kings and bishops and billionaires often have more say than most in forming appetites and emotions of the crowd is not irrelevant, either. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Prayer or not, I want to believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, it is possible for anyone to find that one special person. That person to spend Christmas with or grow old with or just to take a nice silly walk in Central Park with. Somebody who wouldn't judge another for the prepositions they dangle, or their run-on sentences, and who in turn wouldn't be judged for the snobbery of their language etymology inclinations. ~ Rachel Cohn

M. Proust was more severe than M. de Caillavet on Anatole France: "He was selfish and supercilious. He had read so much that he had left his heart in other people's books, and all that remained was dryness. One day I asked him how he came to know so much. He said, 'Not by being such a handsome young man as you. I wasn't in demand, and instead of going out I studied and learned'. ~ Celeste Albaret

Indifference to snobbery, bigotry and savagery turns them into the norm of a society. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The greatest stories appeal to our deepest selves, the parts of us snobbery can't reach, the parts that connect the child to the adult and the brain to the heart and reality to dreams. Stories, at their essence, are enemies of snobbery. And a book snob is the enemy of the book. ~ Matt Haig

There's a real kind of snobbery in the U.K. about horror films. ~ Neil Marshall

Like so many of his successors in the language-crank world today, though, (Jonathan) Swift not only loathes (the) banal and common change (language); he ascribes it to moral failing. ~ Robert Lane Greene

We are against the glorification of "the People," as we are against snobbery. It is not necessary to be an outcast bohemian, to be unkempt or poor, any more than it is necessary to be rich or handsome, to be an artist. Art is nothing to do with the coat you wear. A top-hat can well hold the Sixtine. A cheap cap could hide the image of Kephren. ~ Wyndham Lewis

The derision comes from snobbery, which I think is the worst thing for art and music. I don't think there's any place for it and it comes from insecurity. ~ Theo Hutchcraft

I have been to Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street but cannot get on the BBC. I am very disappointed because it boils down to snobbery. ~ Phil Taylor

The Roman character had a strong streak of snobbery: effectively, citizens preferred to vote for families with strong brand recognition, electing son after father after grandfather to the great magistracies of state, indulging the nobility's dynastic pretensions with a numbing regularity. ~ Tom Holland

He has made me wary of chronological snobbery. That is, he showed me that newness is no virtue and oldness is no vice. Truth and beauty and goodness are not determined by when they exist. Nothing is inferior for being old, and nothing is valuable for being modern. This has freed me from the tyranny of novelty and opened for me the wisdom of the ages. ~ John Piper

In the snobbery of science, each branch attempts to rise in the social scale by imitating the methods of the next higher science and by ignoring the methods and phenomena of the sciences beneath. ~ Gilbert Newton Lewis

I know he's rich. He knows he's rich, too. ~ Lorraine Hansberry

If you ask the other John and Peggy (my parents) how they've managed to stay married for well over half a century, they'll credit an uncompromising level of honesty with each other. If you press them, though, you'll learn that their commitment to the truth did not extend to their children. Indeed, when it came to raising three boys on a public school teachers salary, my parents lied like rugs./
It was a strange sort of snobbery to develop at such an early age - this sympathy for the more fortunate - but that's precisely what my parents engendered. With duplicity and guile, they Turn envy to pity. By the time I was eleven, I felt nothing but compassion for classmates of mine who had been forced to wear the latest fashions. Sadly, they had no older cousins to provide them with a superior wardrobe of "softer, sturdier, broken-in alternatives. ~ Mike Rowe

A stickler hallmark is that those who speak or write differently can't merely be wrong; they must be depraved, too. ~ Robert Lane Greene

Nothing is more characteristically juvenile than contempt for juvenility ... youth's characteristic chronological snobbery. ~ C.S. Lewis

Such terrifying powers we possess, but what a sorry lot of gods some men are. And the worst of it is not the cruelty but the arrogance, the sheer hubris of those who bring only violence and fear into the animal world, as if it needed any more of either. Their lives entail enough frights and tribulations without the modern fire-makers, now armed with perfected, inescapable weapons, traipsing along for more fun and thrills at their expense even as so many of them die away. It is our fellow creatures' lot in the universe, the place assigned them in creation, to be completely at our mercy, the fiercest wolf or tiger defenseless against the most cowardly man. And to me it has always seemed not only ungenerous and shabby but a kind of supreme snobbery to deal cavalierly with them, as if their little share of the earth's happiness and grief were inconsequential, meaningless, beneath a man's attention, trumped by any and all designs he might have on them, however base, irrational, or wicked. ~ Matthew Scully

Udden attack of culture snobbery is a common affliction among policemen of a certain rank and age; it's like a normal midlife crisis only with more chandeliers and foreign languages. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

The parochial snobbery of these people was partly responsible for their failure to convert the Indians. Probably they also preferred to take land from heathens rather than from fellow Christians. At any rate, very few Indians were converted, and the Salem folk believed that the virgin forest was the Devil's last preserve, his home base and the citadel of his final stand. To the best of their knowledge the American forest was the last place on earth that was not paying homage to God. ~ Arthur Miller

A second or two later, the reptile had been quite absorbed by a handsome, arrogant-looking Englishman smelling strongly of snobbery and snake. ~ P.B. Kerr

Of course, there's a certain type of person who feels that anything which becomes mainstream has to be rejected immediately. And that's part of the indie-alternative snobbery and hierarchy and elitism. ~ Alex Kapranos

Another factor that seems to me to be equally important is the great myth and rationale of 'the modern,' that it places dynamite at the foot of old error and levels its shrines and monuments. Contempt for the past surely accounts for a consistent failure to consult it. ~ Marilynne Robinson

I fear that we live in an ahistorical age in which we believe that we are so wise that we no longer need the lessons of the past, perhaps most disturbingly of all that technology has put us beyond the lessons of the past. ~ J. Rufus Fears

Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died. ~ Peter Ustinov

I've found there to be a tremendous amount of East Coast snobbery in the journalism world. ~ Diane Lane

Instead, the new snobbery is based on being 'knowing', and in displaying an awareness of the codes which are used to classify and differentiate between classes. It distinguishes those who are skilled in exercising judgement, in a knowing and sophisticated way, against those, whoever they may be, who are deemed unable to choose effectively. ~ Mike Savage

All definitions of civilization along to a conjugation which goes: I am civilized, you belong to a culture, he is a barbarian. ~ Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

My theory was that if you spent such a big portion of your life being a snob, you were not allowed to be surprised when people start wishing you dead. ~ Chrissy Moon

Music should always be polarizing. What one person likes, somebody else hates. And I hate that kind of snobbery in pop music. The fact that so many people are getting upset over this one song is hysterical. And if people like it, that's great. ~ Simon Cowell

Snobbery management is as difficult and necessary as anger management. ~ Michael Foley

English does not distinguish between arrogant-up (irreverence toward the temporarily powerful) and arrogant-down (directed at the small guy). ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We often hear about stepping outside ourselves, but rarely about stepping outside our generation. ~ Criss Jami

If you assume that the new - and simply because it's new - is always to be better than the old, chances are you've never known anything valuable. ~ Criss Jami

They [Harvard academia] liked the poor, but didn't like the smell of the poor. ~ Chris Hedges

[Snobbishness] is the desire for what divides men and the inability to value what unites them. ~ Joseph Epstein

The British are actually a lot more appreciative of the comic. In Canada, if you're perceived as a comic writer, there's a real snobbery, and you can't be serious. You're not a big hitter. ~ Miriam Toews

We learned pretty early on in this band that you can't have snobbery in music. ~ Mike Shinoda

The pure modernist is merely a snob; he cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Unless we have the courage to fight for a revival of wholesome reserve between man and man, we shall perish in an anarchy of human values ... . Socially it means the renunciation of all place-hunting, a break with the cult of the "star," an open eye both upwards and downwards, especially in the choice of one's more intimate friends, and pleasure in private life as well as courage to enter public life. Culturally it means a return from the newspaper and the radio to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dispersion to concentration, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Marcia was silent a moment. Then a sort of softer gleam came into her angry eye.

"Tell me some more about her," she said.

Adele clapped her hands.

"Ah, that's splendid," she said. "You're beginning to feel kinder. What we would do without our Lucia I can't imagine. I don't know what there would be to talk about."

"She's ridiculous!" said Marcia relapsing a little.

"No, you mustn't feel that," said Adele. "You mustn't laugh at her ever. You must just richly enjoy her."

"She's a snob!" said Marcia, as if this was a tremendous discovery.

"So am I: so are you: so are we all," said Adele. "We all run after distinguished people like--like Alf and Marcelle. The difference between you and Lucia is entirely in her favour, for you pretend you're not a snob, and she is perfectly frank and open about it. Besides, what is a duchess like you for except to give pleasure to snobs? That's your work in the world, darling; that's why you were sent here. Don't shirk it, or when you're old you will suffer agonies of remorse. And you're a snob too. You liked having seven--or was it seventy?--Royals at your dance."

"Well, tell me some more about Lucia," said Marcia, rather struck by this ingenious presentation of the case.

"Indeed I will: I long for your conversion to Luciaphilism. Now to-day there are going to be marvellous happenings... ~ E.F. Benson

High standards generally
about workmanship and creation of objects, about what is owed in friendship, about the quality of art and much else
far from being snobbish, are required to maintain decency in life. ~ Joseph Epstein

Because I don't think I have a handle on how to write for grown-ups. The grown-up publishing world is so fraught with one-upsmanship, scorn and snobbery. I did write an adult novel. Thank goodness it went out of print. I think we kids' authors still start out with hope every morning. We honor our audience. ~ Virginia Euwer Wolff

As I've already mentioned, 1984 and I were getting on famously. A no-frills setup, run without sentiment, snobbery or cultural favouritism, Airstrip One seemed like my kind of town. (I saw myself as an idealistic young corporal in the Thought Police.) ~ Martin Amis

Your people back in Pennsylvania - what are they like?" Caleb finished his work and turned to face Lily, his arms folded. Because the barn was shadowy and he was wearing that blasted campaign hat of his she could barely see his face. "Decent, hardworking, ordinary enough." "Rich?" Lily inquired. "Yes, you could say that." Lily sighed. Marrying the major might eliminate her current dilemma, but once the back-east Hallidays got a good look at her the snobbery would begin all over again. Caleb's family would wonder what had possessed their long-lost son to choose an orphan with a questionable reputation for his wife. He curved a finger under her chin and lifted it. "They'd take to you immediately, sodbuster," he said. "It's me they've got no use for." "And if they didn't?" "They would. Now let's get back to the fort - that is, unless you want to stop at the church and get married first." Lily thought for a moment, then shook her head. Caleb ~ Linda Lael Miller

Snobbery is not merely a silly human weakness but something basic in the mentality of modern man-a symptom which reflects the general sickness, the dislocation of social and cultural values in contemporary civilization. ~ Arthur Koestler

The connoisseur's hushed, museum-trained gaze is not well-designed for these purposes. That gaze values subtlety, complexity, ambiguity, and irony. Its most characteristic grace note is self-congratulation at being the kind of person who likes this rare and beautiful thing, whatever it may be, laced always with contempt for those too crude, too uneducated, or too simple to be able do so. ~ Paul J. Griffiths

Lord, lord, the snobbery of the English! ~ Virginia Woolf

Snobbery is one of the things one should be most discriminating about ~ Edward St. Aubyn

And I know what it is that's going to destroy the world. Lack of communication - reciprocal communication: cultural, political, intellectual - whatever you like. But more, it's snobbery and self-deceit, which are artificial, protective barriers that prevent communication. ~ Angus Stewart

It is professional snobbery that refrains training rookies. ~ Aniruddha Sastikar

Ah, beware of snobbery; it is the unwelcome recognition of one's own past failings. ~ Cary Grant

The man who is respected merely for being the son of his father loses one of the normal incentives to useful effort. He is likely to develop views of life which attach undue importance to the accident of birth and to think that by merely existing he does enough to command respect. He believes himself rather better than other men and therefore becomes rather worse. All distinctions not based upon intrinsic merit have this bad effect upon character and on this ground, if on no other, deserve to be abolished, ~ Bertrand Russell

I had never thought much of genealogy. A lot of wasted time collecting the names of the dead. Then stringing those names, like skulls upon a wire, into an entirely private and thus irrelevant narrative, lacking any historical significance. The narcissistic pastime of nostalgic bores. ~ Joshua Ferris

When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless from out friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going. He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery. ~ C.S. Lewis

To sneer at his imperfect attempt was very bad breeding. ~ Emily Bronte

Music was segregated in the '80s, and then in the '90s the boundaries started to break down, and rock kids got into electronic music. But then you got this reverse snobbery where people would only listen to electronic music and not rock. ~ Thomas Bangalter

Confidence is good, but when they hold their heads high like that, it just makes them look cocky and snobbish. ~ Grace Fiorre

I'll tell you what I love. Sending back bottles of wine that aren't right in restaurants in France! Whoa! I love the French, but I do find their wine snobbery something unbearable. ~ Rod Stewart

Some people have such good taste they can't enjoy anything. ~ Marty Rubin

I do not mean to object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works we read. I object only to the interminable comments and bewildering criticisms that teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as there are men. ~ Helen Keller

The most recent is not necessarily the best. It is still on trial, and has yet to be assessed properly. ~ C.S. Lewis