Betters Quotes & Sayings

The fact is that men who know nothing of decency in their own lives are only too ready to launch foul slanders against their betters and to offer them up as victims to the evil deity of popular envy. — Plutarch

They, the conservatives, are the real outsides, they tell us, gazing with disgust upon the ludicrous manners of the high and mighty. Or, they tell us, they are rough-and-ready proles, laughing along with us at the efforts of our social "betters" to reform and improve us. That they are often, in fact, people of privilege doing their utmost to boost the fortunes of a political party that is the traditional tool of the privileged is a contradiction that does not trouble them. — Thomas Frank

What is the purpose of wealth if it cannot serve an ideal that enhances humanity and betters the lives of the people, even if that means those we have never met before in our lives? — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

To our betters eve can reconcile ourselves, if you please
respecting them sincerely, laughing at their jokes, making allowance for their stupidities, meekly suffering their insolence; but we can't pardon our equals going beyond us. — William Makepeace Thackeray

In a bitter night, a mustard night that was last night, a good thought came and the dark was sweetened when the day sat down. And this thought went from evening star to the late dipper on the edge of the first light
that our betters spoke of. — John Steinbeck

Dost thou question my word, Sir Knight?" Madorallen returned in an ominously quiet voice. "And wilt thou then come down and put thy doubt to the test? Or is it perhaps that thou wouldst prefer to cringe doglike behind thy parapet and yap at thy betters?"
"Oh, that was very good," Barak said admiringly. — David Eddings

Watching people just look out for themselves, I think, is extremely interesting. It goes right back to something like 'The Beggar's Opera' - the underbelly of society, how it operates, and how that reflects their so-called betters. — Peter Mullan

There's nothing inherently or patently wrong with anybody who does well, works hard, earns a living, betters themselves. I'm not against any of these things. It's about how you make that money, and then what you do with it. — Michael Moore

It is absurd to ape our betters. — Aesop

It was the Arch-votary, with its patterned shell. Slowly, it approached; those massive claws raised ... The Arch-votary stopped, looming up before them. "Evil ones," it said, "enemies of the Great One, come and be judged."
Roshaun raised his head and gave the Arch-votary an inexpressibly haughty look. "Killed, perhaps," he said, "But your dark Master has neither authority nor right to judge us. Therefore, stand away, lackey, and keep silent in the presence of your betters. — Diane Duane

There was a pointed silence from Ambrose, so I lowered my shirt and turned to face Fela, ignoring him entirely. "My lady scriv," I said to her with a bow. A very slight bow, as my back wouldn't permit a deep one. "Would you be so good as to help me locate a book concerning women? I have been instructed by my betters to inform myself on this most subtle subject." Fela gave a faint smile and relaxed a bit. — Patrick Rothfuss

If we can only speak to slander our betters, let us hold our tongues. — Anne Bronte

asks as I turn. "A bow to your betters won't go awry, doncha — Pierce Brown

In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together; each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those are the golden sessions; when four or five of us after a hard day's walk have come to our inn; when our slippers are on, our feet spread out toward the blaze and our drinks are at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another, but all are freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us. Life - natural life - has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it? — C.S. Lewis

Truth! why shall every wretch of letters Dare to speak truth against his betters! Let ragged virtue stand aloof, Nor mutter accents of reproof; Let ragged wit a mute become, When wealth and power would have her dumb. — Charles Churchill

It is only after years of struggle and deprivation that the young artist should touch color - and then only in the company of his betters. — El Greco

A God who chastises our lack of faith, our vices, the little esteem in which we hold dignity and the civic virtues. We tolerate vice, we make ourselves its accomplices, at times we applaud it, and it is just, very just that we suffer the consequences, that our children suffer them. It is the God of liberty ... who obliges us to love it, by making the yoke heavy for us - a God of mercy, of equity, who while He chastises us betters us and only grants prosperity to him who has merited it through his efforts. The school of suffering tempers, the arena of combat strengthens the soul. — Jose Rizal

Don't go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you'll land in trouble too big for you. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I don't know what the country's coming to. Everyone trying to be better than their betters
mink coats and no manners. No wonder Germany's arming. — Arthur Wimperis

What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.
I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,
I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function: each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deed,
That all your acts are queens. — William Shakespeare

The middle classes air their moral prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper about what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try and pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with the people they slander. — Oscar Wilde

Don't let your elders and supposed betters tell you any different. Sure, you've never been to Paris. No, you never ran with the bulls at Pamploma. Yes, you're a pissant who had no hair in your armpits until three years ago - but so what? If you don't start out too big for your britches, how are you gonna fill 'em when you grow up? Let it rip regardless of what anybody tells you, that's my idea; sit down an smoke that baby. — Stephen King

Employers have resorted to requiring a college degree. They do this not for anything the employee may have learned in college but to ensure that he will be able to read and count, and will show up on time. It's a mechanism, that's all. It helps keep the government overseer off their backs, lest they exert a human judgment not approved by their betters. So — Anthony Esolen

Rebukes are easy from our betters,
From men of quality and letters;
But when low dunces will affront,
What man alive can stand the brunt? — Jonathan Swift

But this is what it means to be civilized - doing what her betters say she should, for the ostensible good of all. — N.K. Jemisin

Never pretend to have money except when you are in straits. The poor man who pretends to have a bank account betters his credit and takes no risk. But the prosperous individual who counts his money in the street, forthwith will be invited to attend a charity bazaar. — George Ade

I wasted my substance, I know I did, on riotous living, so I did, but there's nothing on record to show I did more than my betters have done. — Rudyard Kipling

Doubt has become the veritable wellspring of my creative process and my philosophic explorations. It has equipped me with the temerity and wherewithal to question certain truths deemed 'fundamental' by my betters. Defiance has made me stubborn - possibly even arrogant - enough to shrug off rejection and all fears thereof, no matter how lacerating to the self-esteem these could be. It has given me the will to seek only to satisfy myself. — Ashim Shanker

Everyone here was the cleverest little monkey in his or her particular tree. Except now we're all in one tree together. It can be a shock. Not enough coconuts to go round. You'll be dealing with your equals for the first time in your life, and your betters. You won't like it. — Lev Grossman

Hardly ever can a youth transferred to the society of his betters unlearn the nasality and other vices of speech bred in him by the associations of his growing years. Hardly ever, indeed, no matter how much money there be in his pocket, can he ever learn to dress like a gentleman-born. The merchants offer their wares as eagerly to him as to the veriest swell, but he simply cannot buy the right things. — William James

Shanghai set out to take over from Hong Kong and I think it's done that. It's got the most amazing futuristic skyline which rivals and even betters Tokyo. — Paul Oakenfold

As I said before, I took to miniature painting without a completely whole heart, on the advice of my elders and betters. Generally speaking, I do not think that one should ever take another person's advice in the things of life that really matter, but follow the dictates of the still small something in one's innermost self. But 'they' advised, and I bowed to the advice; and in this particular instance it was a good thing I did, because the advice turned out to be so resoundingly wrong that it turned me into another direction altogether. If I had gone on working in oils I might very well have been a dedicated but unsuccessful painter to this day. — Rosemary Sutcliff

Education is a great shield against experience. It offers so much, ready-made and all from the best shops, that there's a temptation to miss your own life in pursuing the life of your betters. — Robertson Davies

Love betters what is best — William Wordsworth

He who betters a man betters himself. — Matshona Dhliwayo

When we lift the wage floor, it not only betters the lives of those whose wages are directly affected, it also lifts the economy as a whole. — Thomas Perez

He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, had demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors. It is this foulest of creatures - the double-parasite — Ayn Rand

Take democracy. According to the common-sense meaning, a society is democratic to the extent that people can participate in a meaningful way in managing their affairs. But the doctrinal meaning of democracy is different - it refers to a system in which decisions are made by sectors of the business community and related elites. The public are to be only "spectators of action," not "participants," as leading democratic theorists (in this case, Walter Lippmann) have explained. They are permitted to ratify the decisions of their betters and to lend their support to one or another of them, but not to interfere with matters - like public policy - that are none of their business. — Noam Chomsky

I conceive disgust at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In the meantime I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters! — Charles Lamb

You are unmannerly,sharp-tounged, and show no respect for your betters,which is practically everyone given your lowly ravel birth."
"I am Edema Ruh to my bones.
That means my blood is red.
It means I breathe the free air and walk where my feet take me.
I do not cringe and fawn like a dog at a man's title.
That looks like pride to people who have spent their lives cultivating supple spines"
-Kvothe — Patrick Rothfuss

America is not a democracy, it's an absolute monarchy ruled by King Kid. In a nation of immigrants, the child is automatically more of an American than his parents. Americans regard children as what Mr. Hudson in Upstairs, Downstairs called betters. Aping their betters, American adults do their best to turn themselves into children. Puerility exercises droit de seigneur everywhere. — Florence King

Were they our betters? No. They are people like us, Aunt Abbie, no better than some and no worse than others. From what I have learned of their world I can say with confidence that they have not brought forth a paradise on Earth.
But if there is such a thing as progress, perhaps Futurcity is entitled to some part of the disdain with which they regard us.
Until the world is perfect we pay the price of progress by acknowledging the sins of the past. It is the business of the future to chastise us, and we ought to accept that chastisement. — Robert Charles Wilson

Religion is important to the order of society. It reconciles the lower classes to their lot in life and teaches them to respect their betters. — C.S. Harris

Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters. — Jonathan Swift

Of course, Admiral Ackbar is a student of history, and in many cases smaller, lesser forces have outmatched and outfoxed their betters. The Ghostfinder fleet versus the Sith armada. The Mandalorians versus the Grand Army of the Republic. And, of course, the Rebel Alliance versus the Empire. History — Chuck Wendig

I always found misogyny vulgar and stupid, and I found almost all the women I have known to be my betters. However, placing them so high, I used them more often than I served them. How does one make sense of this? — Albert Camus

God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, and the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in his arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; he will set them above their betters. — H.L. Mencken

And despite it all, he has never been able to abandon hope that his betters will someday notice him. Will someday accept him as one of their own.
It is the failing of his lifetime. — Kim Wright

But these are sad times, the 'prentices wanting to be masters, and every little tradesman wanting to be a Senator, and every dirty little urchin thinking he can give
impudence to his betters! — Hope Mirrlees

Men are not born equal in themselves, so I think it beneath a man to postulate that they are. If I thought myself as good as Sokrates I should be a fool; and if, not really believing it, I asked you to make me happy by assuring me of it, you would rightly despise me. So why should I insult my fellow-citizens by treating them as fools and cowards? A man who thinks himself as good as everyone else will be at no pains to grow better. On the other hand, I might think myself as good as Sokrates, and even persuade other fools to agree with me; but under a democracy, Sokrates is there in the Agora to prove me wrong. I want a city where I can find my equals and respect my betters, whoever they are; and where no one can tell me to swallow a lie because it is expedient, or some other man's will. — Mary Renault

"Mediocrity" doesn't mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters. — Ayn Rand

If men like Boyle think that force is all they need to rob their betters - let them see what happens when one of their betters chooses to resort to force. — Ayn Rand

He belonged to the old school of country gentlemen, ruling his estate with semi-benevolent tyranny and turning his back on all symptoms of social innovation. Under his domination the Packlestone country had been looked after on feudal system lines. His method of dealing with epistolary complaints from discontented farmers was to ignore them; in verbal intercourse he bulled them and sent them about their business with a good round oath. Such people, he firmly believed, were put there by Providence to touch their hats and do as they were told by their betters ... And as such he continued beyond his eightieth year, until he fell into a fish-pond on his estate and was buried by the parson whose existence he had spurned by his arrogance. — Siegfried Sassoon

Eating be eating, b'ain't it, Birdie?'
'Nay, Uncle Bear: In Caermelor, at the Royal Court, they be so-oh, so much more advanced than anywhere else. 'Tis not done to wipe your fingers on your hair or the tablecloth, or belch, or speak with your mouth full of food, or scratch, or pick your teeth at table. Ye have to use little forks to pick up the food. Ye not allowed to pour wine for your betters or for yourself, but to wait for them to deign to pour it for ye, if they be feeling generous. And the carving of the meats must be done a certain way, and as for the toasts-it would take ye a whole day just to learn the complications.
'Takes the fun out of eating,' observed Sianadh. — Cecilia Dart-Thornton

You're a spelling bee champ, aren't you, White Fang? How do you spell, 'If I don't learn to speak to my betters with more respect, I'm going to get my face smashed in'?"

Tom laughed, unable to resist. "That one's easy. It's K-A-R-L. — S.J. Kincaid

The only kind of freedom that the mob can imagine is freedom to annoy and oppress its betters, and that is precisely the kind that we mainly have. — H.L. Mencken

Mandorallen turned to Barak. "If it please thee, my Lord," he requested politely, "deliver my challenge as soon as they approach us."
Barak shrugged. "It's your skin," he noted. He eyed the advancing knights and then lifted his voice in a great roar. "Sir Madorallen, Baron of Vo Mandor, desires entertainment," he declaimed. "It would amuse him if each of your parties would select a champion to joust with him. If, however, you are all such cowardly dogs that you have no stomach for such a contest, cease this brawling and stand aside so that your betters may pass."
"Splendidly spoken, my Lord Barak," Madorallen said with admiration.
"I've always had a way with words," Barak replied modestly. — David Eddings

CHARLES. And the courts have declared that your judges were full of corruption and cozenage, fraud and malice. JOAN. Not they. They were as honest a lot of poor fools as ever burned their betters. — George Bernard Shaw

You've got another problem. Like most white trash, you're disrespectful to your betters and proud of your stupidity and ignorance. — James Lee Burke

All the benefit that a New Yorker gets out of Kansas is no more than what he might get out of Saskatchewan, the Argentine pampas, of Siberia. But New York to a Kansan is not only a place where he may get drunk, look at dirty shows and buy bogus antiques; it is also a place where he may enforce his dunghill ideas upon his betters. — H.L. Mencken

People in low life have no such privilege. Necessity, which spares our betters, has no pity on us. We learn to put our feelings back into ourselves, and to jog on with our duties as patiently as may be. — Wilkie Collins

I suspect that the word (art) was invented by second-rate intelligences to describe the incomprehensible activities of their betters. — Jack Vance

the cosmogony of Genesis is so simple that even a yokel can grasp it. It is set forth in a few phrases. It offers, to an ignorant man, the irresistible reasonableness of the nonsensical. So he accepts it with loud hosannas, and has one more excuse for hating his betters. — Francis Wheen

The Rothschilds taught the world how to run drunkenly into debt. We common people shall never know, perhaps, all of the hidden meanings that are wrapped up in that wonderful word - " debt." It has so many meanings, so many morals and so many vices. The poor are always urged by their betters never to go into debt. The rich H4 OUR DISHONEST CONSTITUTION and the moderately rich, of course, go into debt as much as they please, or as much as they can. — Anonymous

Who are we, really? Are our souls shaped, our fates written in full by God, before we draw our first breath? Do we make ourselves, by the choices we our selves make? Or are we clay merely, that is molded and pushed into the shape that our betters propose for us? — Geraldine Brooks

OBLIVION, n. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock. — Ambrose Bierce

Frequent the company of your betters. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The scum of the People are most Tyrannical when they get the Power, and treat their Betters with the greatest Insolence. — Mary Astell

Unless your answers are clearly better, copy the answers of your betters. — Warren Buffett

In short, we can only learn from our "betters". — Mortimer J. Adler

She had that look a child has only a few times in its life, when the child has bettered her betters. The expression isn't smug, though adults often take it for smugness. It's something else. Maybe relief at having confirmed through personal experience the long-held suspicion of our species, that the enchanted world of childhood is merely a mask for something else, a more subtle and paradoxical magic.
- p. 157 — Gregory Maguire

No, but your idea of what betters human life might differ from someone else's.' For — Alan Dean Foster

Don't you have any respect for your betters?"
"I do. That's why I'm going to help her up the stairs and put her to bed with a cup of hot tea. You can just sit here and ... jangle your manacle! — Christina Dodd

There was a time when formal clothes were one of life's great pleasures, as well as a way of describing instantly a man's status wealth. Toffs wore the most, the proles the least. Fast forward to 2008 and clothes are still an unrivalled pleasure but some men - and this includes many of our betters - have confused status with fake informality. — Peter York

It can be so difficult to train up the peasants," she said, pretending to commiserate, her voice heavy with irony. "They find it so hard to project the kind of snobbery that comes so naturally to their betters. — Caitlin Crews

Might I give counsel to any man, I would say to him, try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and in life, that is the most wholesome society; learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what great men admire. — William Makepeace Thackeray

I set it down as a maxim, that it is good for a man to live where he can meet his betters, intellectual and social. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Elves and Dragons! Cabbages and potatoes are better for me and you. Don't go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you'll land in trouble too big for you.

~Hamfast Gamgee (the Gaffer) — J.R.R. Tolkien

The idea of equality is a by-product of the sentiment of envy. Since it must always prove beyond human ower to raise the inferior mass to a superior stratum, apostles of equality must ever be inferiors seeking to reduce their betters to their level. It follows that a nation that once admits this doctrine of equality will be dragged by it to the level, moral, intelletual and political, of its most worthless class. — Rafael Sabatini

You have an alarming streak of chivalry for a butler. I'd accuse you of aping your betters, but I have met your houseguests. — Caroline Dunford

Dream sets us on fire.
Dream gives us direction.
Dream betters our potential.
Dream helps us prioritize.
Dream adds value to our work and
life.
Dream colors our future. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

Jud threw down the turfs he had brought in. "If you learned her to hold 'er tongue," he said pettishly to his wife, "'twould be a sight betterer than learning 'er that. If you learned 'er manners, how to speak respectable to folk and answer respectable an' be respectable to her elders an' betters, 'twould be a sight betterer than that. Then ye could pat yourself on the 'ead and say, 'Thur, I'm doing a tidy job, learning her to be respectable.' But what are 'ee doing? Tedn't 'ard to answer. Tedn't 'ard to see. You're learning her to be sassy. — Winston Graham

From the standpoint of the upper classes, the system had many merits. They felt that what was paid out of the poor rate was charity, and therefore a proof of their benevolence; at the same time, wages were kept at starvation level by a method which just prevented discontent from developing into revolution ... It was plainly the certainty, derived from the old Poor Law, that actual death would be averted by the parish authorities, which induced the rural poor of England to endure their misery patiently ... it taught them respect for their 'betters'.While leaving all the wealth that they produced, beyond the absolute minimum required for subsistence, in the hands of the landowners and farmers. It was at this period that landowners built the sham Gothic ruins called 'follies', where they indulged in romantic sensibility about the past while they filled the present with misery and degradation. — Bertrand Russell

There is nothing more becoming any wise man, than to make choice of friends, for by them thou shalt be judged what thou art: let them therefore be wise and virtuous, and none of those that follow thee for gain; but make election rather of thy betters, than thy inferiors. — Walter Raleigh

The so-called religious organizations which now lead the war against the teaching of evolution are nothing more, at bottom, than conspiracies of the inferior man against his betters. — H.L. Mencken

They were not victors, he and his kind, not in any way, they were the defeated still, for they had become like their betters. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Daily I witness my spiritual betters in my own children. When the snows come, I see ice crystals falling, slick roads, and rising heat bills. They sit at the window in awe of God's creativity. When nighttime falls and the stars shine, I muse about burning balls of hydrogen. They join the dancing of the spheres in celebration of God who made them. When our family sits down to eat, I envision a cluttered kitchen and dishes needing to be washed. They see daily bread delivered by their faithful heavenly Father. — R.C. Sproul Jr.

Although they had been honed like hawks toward the guns since early childhood, Cuthbert and Alain still carried an erroneous belief common to many boys their age: that their elders were also their betters, at least in such matters as planning and wit; they actually believed that grownups knew what they were doing. — Stephen King

Theseus overturned this by a single stroke: he moved the sessions outdoors, to the hill of the Pnyx, where the people could attend and observe their betters. What a revolution this affected! Before, — Steven Pressfield

men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?" There will also be an American flag no larger than a child's hand - glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register. *** — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes. — William Shakespeare

Chuse none for thy servant who have served thy betters. — George Herbert

Try to be the best even if you can't be the best, you will be among the betters. — Debasish Mridha

Honesty was a cheat invented first To bind the hands of bold deserving rogues, That fools and cowards might sit safe in power, And lord it uncontroll'd above their betters. — Thomas Otway

They're all so highly educated, you know. Education is a great shield against experience. It offers so much, ready-made and all from the best shops, that there's a temptation to miss your own life in pursuing the lives of your betters. It makes you wise in some ways, but it can make you a blindfolded fool in others. — Robertson Davies