“England is the most class-ridden country under the sun. It is a land of snobbery and privilege, ruled largely by the old and silly.”

Source: Why I Write

Last update Sept. 30, 2023. History

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George Orwell 473
English author and journalist 1903–1950

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Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 86. The quotation has been attributed to many others, such as Lord Chief Justice Campbell, Lord Chesterfield, Sir William Harcourt, Lord Pembroke, Lord Westbury, and to an anonymous judge, and said to have been spoken in court to Garter King at Arms, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, or some other high-ranking herald, who had confused a "bend" with a "bar" or had demanded fees to which he was not entitled. George Bernard Shaw quotes it in Pygmalion (1912) in the form, "The silly people dont [sic] know their own silly business."

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