History
The idea of nouveau riche and the struggle within the ranks of the dates from Antiquity, to Ancient Greece (ca. 8th c. BC β 7th c. AD) and the social class animosity between Old Money (inherited wealth) and the appropriators of new wealth. In the sixth century BC, the poet and aristocrat Theognis of Megara wrote how βin former days, there was a tribe who knew no laws nor manners . . These men are nobles, now, the gentlemen of old are now the trash.β This Greek poet wrote these words during a time in Greece, when money and economic growth in relation to trade gave rise to high class proprietors. In the Roman Republic the term "Homo novus" ("New Man") carried similar connotations.
Read more about this topic: Nouveau Riche
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“To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.”
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“Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.”
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“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
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