Fanny Kemble Quotes

The large and rapid fortunes by which vulgar and ignorant people become possessed of splendid houses, splendidly furnished, do not of course, give them the feelings and manners of gentle folks.

By nature servile, people attempt at first glance to find signs of good breeding in the appearance of those who occupy more exalted stations.

I'm not one of these people who thinks everyone born into privilege should wear sack cloth and ashes. But it's something I wrestle with. I know a lot of people who live below the poverty level and have for a long time and it makes them uneasy to think they'll have to interact with people from different economic levels. Everyone has some sort of load put on them, whatever the circumstances they're born into.

In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.

When aristocrats pretend they're common people -- they get common!

When I look out [the window] at the big houses on either side of the road, it's obvious we've entered the rich side of town. Poor people don't post signs like NO TRESPASSING, PRIVATE DRIVE, PRIVATE PROPERTY, MONITORED BY CAMERA SURVEILLANCE. I should know because I've been poor my entire life, and the only person I know who ever posted a sign like these is my friend...and he actually stole the sign off a rich guy's yard.

I'm not posh or common, I'm in between.

Because I sometimes shopped in Waitrose, I thought I was actually quite posh. I've realised that I'm basically a scullery maid. Even the middle-class people who I meet in parliament, people who live in London - which I think is remarkable because how can anybody afford to live there - seem much, much more middle class than me.

Working class people vote Tory because they think it makes them look a bit posh.

People often think of America as a classless society, but, of course, that isn't true. Within immigrant communities, there's an enormous distinction of class, depending on who your parents are, and that kind of thing comes out really quick in things like marriage and interpersonal relationships.

Poor people know poor people, and rich people know rich people. It is one of the few things La Rochefoucauld did not say, but then La Rochefoucauld never lived in the Bronx.

I think the working-class part of me comes out. Sometimes the people who have the loudest mouths are upper-class, upper-middle-class. The quietest are often working-class people, people who are broke. There is a fear of losing whatever it is that you have. I come from that background.

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.

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.

A beggar's book outworths a noble's blood.

Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat.

If you had pockets, you were associated with a labor force. It meant you had things to carry yourself. Otherwise, your lady's maid or your manservant would have done it for you.

And, while it was regarded as pretty good evidence of criminality to be living in a slum, for some reason owning a whole street of them merely got you invited to the very best social occasions.

The whole strength of England lies in the fact that the enormous majority of the English people are snobs.

Class is a way of looking at society that divides people into different categories based on how much money they're willing to make.

He isn’t like us Low. You know that right.” I knew what Cage was saying. Marcus was out of my league. He didn’t want me thinking there could ever be anything between me and his roommate. I was low class. Marcus was a rich kid. “I’m not stupid Cage.

We talk of the enormous virtues of work, but it turns out that that is mostly for the poor. If you're rich enough or if you're a college professor, the virtue lies in leisure and the use you make of your leisure time.

Aristocrats have heirs; the poor have children; the rest keep dogs.

Poor people who had escaped from poverty as I had, feared it, hated it and fled from it all their lives. Those born rich could afford to be touched by it.