Robert Sternberg Quotes

I don't like class distinction, and there is far too much of that in England.

Class and the snobbery it provokes still matter far too much in Britain, but we are a far more mobile society than we used to be.

Class still matters in Britain today.

I reject absolutely the idea that people should know their place, and know their class.

There are only two classes - first class and no class.

There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents;... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy.

On the battlefield, there is no distinction between upper and lower class.

I'm not interested in classes ... Far be it from me to foster inferiority complexes among the workers by trying to make them think they belong to some special class.

America thinks of itself as a meritocracy, so people have more respect for success and more contempt for failure.

England is obsessed with where you came from, and they are determined to keep you in that place, be it in a drawing room or in the gutter.

And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it's not supposed to be.

Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them, or selectively lower it down to allow their friends, allies, and kin to scramble up. In other words: 'Who says meritocracy says oligarchy.'

Is class snobbery a social reality in the United States? Absolutely, and the kind that's codified by meritocracy is probably more toxic than the old-fashioned kind based on bloodlines.

I don't believe in social equality, and they know it.

I want nothing to do with privilege.

Every society naturally divides itself into classes. The author of nature has bestowed on some greater capacities than on others--birth, education, talents and wealth, create distinctions among men as visible and of as much influence as titles, stars and garters. In every society, men of this class will command a superior degree of respect--and if the government is so constituted as to admit but few to exercise the powers of it, it will, according to the natural course of things, be in their hands.

Aristocracy is naturally abhorrent to me, and adored equality is my idol.

Our democracy may have an aristocracy of talent, as Jefferson said – which is fine – but we don’t want everyone else to be left out. Something like that seems to be happening, though.

There seems to be an idea abroad in this land as well as in others, that a certain class of people are for the purpose of producing servants for another class of people, and that this servant-producing class has no right to give their children an education that is calculated to elevate them above the position of their parents. We are not in sympathy with this idea.

A meritocracy increases inequality --- by its very nature, it has to.

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.

Tory society is a closed society, in which birth and wealth have priority.

What's wrong with being elitist if you are trying to encourage people to join the elite rather than being exclusive?

Both Conservative and Labour politicians in Britain are rather too fond of praising the relative 'classlessness' of American society and of urging their own people to emulate it. There is a certain falseness about such arguments, and also a certain hypocrisy.

The days of noblesse oblige are long behind us, so our elite's entire claim to legitimacy rests on theories of equal opportunity and upward mobility, and the promise that 'merit' correlates with talents and deserts.