Status Quotes

“These... things, householder, are welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world:

Long life is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world.

Beauty is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world.

Happiness is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world.

Status is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world.

...Now, I tell you, these... things are not to be obtained by reason of prayers or wishes. If they were to be obtained by reason of prayers or wishes, who here would lack them? It's not fitting for the disciple of the noble ones who desires long life to pray for it or to delight in doing so. Instead, the disciple of the noble ones who desires long life should follow the path of practice leading to long life. In so doing, he will attain long life...

[Ittha Sutta, AN 5.43]”
― Buddha

“When I look at a person, I see a person - not a rank, not a class, not a title.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Some people think they can find satisfaction in good food, fine clothes, lively music, and sexual pleasure. However, when they have all these things, they are not satisfied. They realize happiness is not simply having their material needs met. Thus, society has set up a system of rewards that go beyond material goods. These include titles, social recognition, status, and political power, all wrapped up in a package called self-fulfillment. Attracted by these prizes and goaded on by social pressure, people spend their short lives tiring body and mind to chase after these goals. Perhaps this gives them the feeling that they have achieved something in their lives, but in reality they have sacrificed a lot in life. They can no longer see, hear, act, feel, or think from their hearts. Everything they do is dictated by whether it can get them social gains. In the end, they've spent their lives following other people's demands and never lived a life of their own. How different is this from the life of a slave or a prisoner?”
― Liezi, Lieh-tzu: A Taoist Guide to Practical Living

“Astley comes to my side. "Are you well?" "No," I tell him, voice hoarse. "I am not well. I am broken inside. I am broken almost all-the-way deep, and I don't know...I don't know if I can ever be unbroken, let alone well again”.”
― Carrie Jones, Entice

“Single is not a status, it is a word that describes a person who is strong enough to live and enjoy life without depending on others.”
― prixie

“Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

“We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.”
― Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

“A person can't help their birth. ”
― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“الجمعة ليس يوم عطلة أيها الدكتاتور. إنهض، استحِمّ، أصبغ شعرك، ارتدِ ملابسك الكاملة، إجلس إلى مكتبك وافتح النافذة، لتسمع لعنة الشعب”
― مريد البرغوثي

“The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.”
― Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

“He offered her power, money, status...
a giant prison, all in exchange
for only...her soul.”
― Jamie Weise

“It's not what you do but that kind of job you do that makes the difference.”
― Ben Carson, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

“Money can't buy happiness but it can buy a huge yacht that sails right next to it.”
― David Lee Roth

“...status, as in any traditional, class-conscious society, declines more slowly than wealth.”
― Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist

“People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse "nobodies"-both of which are, of course, nonsensical descriptors, for we are all, by necessity, individuals with distinct identities and comparable claims on existence. Such words are nevertheless an apt vehicle for conveying the disparate treatment accorded to different groups. Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored.”
― Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

“We are all dust passing through the air, the difference is, some are flying high in the sky, while others are flying low. But eventually, we all settle on the same ground.”
― Anthony Liccione

“Fame is a double-edged sword:
It will make you gain status and popularity,
but also lose motivation and creativity.”
― Mouloud Benzadi

“Philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemia have never sought to do away entirely with the status hierarchy; they have attemptee, rather, to institute new kinds of hierarchies based on sets of values unrecognised by, and critical of, those of the majority.. They have provided us with persuasive and consoling reminders that there is more than one way of succeeding in life.”
― Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

“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.”
― Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

“It is according to how we are able to answer the question of what we do (normally the first enquiry we will have to field in any new acquaintance) that the quality of our reception is likely to be decided.”
― Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

“The world more often rewards outward signs of merit than merit itself.”
― La Rochefoucaul

“Statistics show that the nature of English crime is reverting to its oldest habits. In a country where so many desire status and wealth, petty annoyances can spark disproportionately violent behaviour. We become frustrated because we feel powerless, invisible, unheard. We crave celebrity, but that’s not easy to come by, so we settle for notoriety. Envy and bitterness drive a new breed of lawbreakers, replacing the old motives of poverty and the need for escape. But how do you solve crimes which no longer have traditional motives?”
― Christopher Fowler, Ten Second Staircase

“Far from rejecting outright any hierarchy of success or failure, philosophy instead reconfigures the judging process, lending legitimacy to theidea that themainstream value system may unfairly consign some people to disgrace and others to respectability.”
― Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

“as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.”
― Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

“We are the same, you and I. Whether samurai or night-hawk, the Suruga Dainagon or member of the Toudouza, it makes no difference. My sword is the proof....”
― Takayuki Yamaguchi, シグルイ 15

“If we were content with ownership, then we would stop acquiring more stuff. But the combination of the thrill of the chase, the need for status and the crippling sense at the prospect of loss reveal that ownership Is one the strongest human urges and does not easily respond to reason. Of course, most of think we are the exception, but then, that is why we are possessed.”
― Bruce M. Hood, Possessed: Why We Want More Than We Need

“Why do you like Hugh better? Because he is a Viscount?'
'Well, that's one reason,' I admitted, without any false shame. Respect for degree was in my blood and I didn't think of it as snobbery.”
― L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between

“We are the same, you and I. Whether samurai or night-hawk, the Suruga Dainagon or member of the Toudouza, it makes no difference. My sword is the proof...."

These words, wrung from the very depths of his soul, surprised even Seigen himself. He had not risen in the world merely in order to satisfy his ambition, but in order to repudiate hierarchical society and the fixed class system.”
― Takayuki Yamaguchi, シグルイ 15

“What a world it is, Cora thought, that makes a living prison into your only haven. Was she out of bondage or in its web: how to describe the status of a runaway?”
― Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad

“Ye wha are fain to hae your name
Wrote in the bonny book o fame,
Let merit nae pretension claim
To laurel'd wreath,
But hap ye weel, baith back and wame,
In guid Braid Claith.”
― Robert Fergusson, Poems of Fergusson