Quotes About Status

Miki, damage report." "I am at eighty-six percent functional capacity." It held up its arm stump. "It's only a flesh wound.

It used to be said that by a certain age a man had the face that he deserved. Nowadays, he has the face he can afford.

Danish kitchen manufacturers often use the term "Conversation Kitchen" to refer to an expensive, well-appointed kitchen that is used less often for cooking than it is as a theatrical backdrop for entertaining guests. I've

A closer examination of the facts would have shown that hordes of perfectly free men and women enjoying equal authority, status and access to resources of every kind, including each other's sexuality, have never existed and probably could not have existed. To paraphrase Hobbes, perfect equality, like its concomitant perfect liberty, can only exist when each individual lives alone in a desert, where it is meaningless.

nothing statusy about being stranded on the road. Designer-label companies charge more because they've spent a fortune on marketing and advertising to build their brand's status, their perceived value. I roll my eyes at people who, for example, wear Facconable shirts or Rolex watches. Right or wrong, I perceive them as so insecure that they need to attempt to appear worthy by silly spending.

As men get older, the toys get more expensive.

in the reign of the emperor Nero, when someone had the bright idea to make slaves wear uniforms, it was rejected on the grounds that this would make clear to the slave population just how numerous they were.

One apocryphal tale describes how a virtuous plebeian, the aptly named Marcus Caedicius ('disaster teller'), heard the voice of some unknown god warning him that Gauls were approaching, but his report was ignored because of his lowly status. It turned out to be a lesson for the patricians – learned the hard way – that the gods communicated with plebeians too.

The cash that comes from selling your labour is vulgar and unacceptable for a gentleman … for wages are effectively the bonds of slavery.

cultural anxieties are often a privilege of the rich.

Two hundred years later there was little to patrician privilege beyond the right to hold a few ancient priesthoods and to wear a particular form of fancy footwear.

they redefined the word 'Latin' so that it was no longer an ethnic identity but a political status unrelated to race or geography. This set the stage for a model of citizenship and 'belonging' that had enormous significance for Roman ideas of government, political rights, ethnicity and 'nationhood'.

There's a certain part of the contented majority who love anybody who is worth a billion dollars.

Those who forgets their friends to follow those of a higher status are truly snobs.

Money can't buy you friends; but you do get a better class of enemies.

It is only poverty that makes celibacy contemptible. A single woman of good fortune is always respectable.

Mormons... are so strong, they can handle wealth, they are confident. I think it is because they are not bogged down by rules for equality, but have a firmly defined system of relative status and responsible command.

A society person who is enthusiastic about modern painting or Truman Capote is already half a traitor to his class. It is middle-class people who, quite mistakenly, imagine that a lively pursuit of the latest in reading and painting will advance their status in the world.

The penalty of success is to be bored by the attentions of people who formerly snubbed you.

As equality increases, so does the number of people struggling for predominance.

Everything looked expensive and calm, as if calm was something you needed money to pay for.

Total fame was when you reached the point where looking like a hero, or genius, or god, required minimal effort.

I was later to realize that a neatly trimmed lawn was a powerful signifier and should have commanded in me a slight sense of fear and respect, especially in conjunction

In a massive, long-term study of 17,000 civil servants, an almost unbelievable conclusion emerged: the status of a person's job was more likely to predict their likelihood of a heart attack than obesity, smoking or high blood pressure.