Quotes about Snobbery

Mrs. Anthony Kirby: You needn't waste your time trying to protect me. That won't help. If you had any sense, young woman, you'd stay where you belong and stop being ambitious!

- Mary Forbes (as Mrs. Anthony Kirby) in You Can't Take It With You (1938)

Mrs. Anthony Kirby: Haven't we been embarrassed enough? Seems to me a little more respect should be shown for our position!

- Mary Forbes (as Mrs. Anthony Kirby) in You Can't Take It With You (1938)

Alice Sycamore: You know I've decided that it's your family that isn't good enough! Why I wouldn't be related to a bunch of snobs like that for anything in the world. Your mother's all in a dither because of her social reputation.
The Crowd: That's telling them Alice. Who do they think they are!
Alice Sycamore: Your reputation's safe as far as I'm concerned - and so is your son's -- and so is your old man's!

- Jean Arthur (as Alice Sycamore) in You Can't Take It With You (1938)

Stretch Willoughby: I'm glad you asked me though because I'd like to tell you. In the first place I don't see where you get off pickin' anybody for President when you haven't the decency to treat a person like a human bein'instead of askin' people to sit down at your table so that you can laugh at them. Maybe you oughtta go out and find out what they think and feel and what their needs are and what you can do to help them. That's all that's goin' to count in the long run. If, if Judge Smith there wants to be President, he ain't gonna get very far lookin' down his nose at people, and, and thinkin' he's better than they are. Abraham Lincoln didn't have to do that, and he turned out to be a pretty good President.

- Gary Cooper (as Stretch Willoughby) in The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)

Phil Green: They're more than nasty little snobs, Kathy. Call them that, and you can dismiss them too easily. They're persistent traitors to everything this country stands for, and you have to fight them, not just for the Jews, but for everything this country stands for.

- Gregory Peck (as Philip Schuyler Green) in Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

Rhett Butler: Don't give yourself airs, Scarlett.

- Clark Gable (as Rhett Butler) in Gone with the Wind (1939)

Stretch Willoughby: I'd advise you to get off your high horse and stop talkin' down to people, and the same goes for your smart-aleck friends here!
Oliver Wendell Henderson: I beg your pardon!
Stretch Willoughby: You know you don't give a hang what I think!

- Gary Cooper (as Stretch Willoughby) in The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)

Edgar Linton: Well, what brought about this amazing transformation? Did you discover a gold mine in the New World, or perhaps you fell heir to a fortune?
Heathcliff: The truth is I remembered that my father was an emperor of China and my mother was an Indian queen, and I went out and claimed my inheritance. It all turned out just as you once suspected, Cathy: that I had been kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England; that I was of noble birth.

- Laurence Olivier (as Heathcliff) in Wuthering Heights (1939)

Woman: What makes saloonkeepers so snobbish?
Banker: Perhaps if you told him I ran the second largest banking house in Amsterdam.
Carl: Second largest? That wouldn't impress Rick. The leading banker in Amsterdam is now the pastry chef in our kitchen.

- S.Z. Sakall (as Carl) in Casablanca (1942)

Victoria Whipsnade : I didn't ask you to marry me.
Roger Bel: Oh, I see it now. You were just marrying me for my name, my social position.
Victoria Whipsnade : Why you insignificant, egotistical little...
Mrs. Bel-Goodie: Well! You're speaking to a Bel-Goodie!
Victoria Whipsnade : And you're speaking to a Whipsnade!

- Constance Moore (as Victoria Whipsnade) in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939)