Life & Wisdom Quote by Anthony Trollope

A Victorian novelist aiming at polite society’s sore spots, Trollope lands the jab where his readers felt it most: in the drawing room, not the gutter. “Wine is valued by its price, not its flavour” isn’t foodie pedantry; it’s an indictment of a culture that mistakes cost for discernment. The line works because it’s so calmly transactional. No moral thunder, just the cold arithmetic of status. Price becomes a proxy for taste, and taste becomes a proxy for class.

The subtext is about insecurity disguised as refinement. If flavor were the standard, you’d need attention, honesty, maybe even the humility to admit you prefer something unfashionable. Price is easier: it’s legible, performable, and socially enforceable. It lets a host communicate rank without saying a word, and lets guests signal belonging with a practiced nod. Trollope’s irony is that the very people who claim “good taste” are outsourcing it to a receipt.

Context matters: Trollope wrote in an England where new money was crashing into old hierarchies, where consumption became a language for sorting who was “really” genteel. Wine is just the cleanest example because it’s literally bottled prestige: labels, vintages, and reputations that can be repeated even when the palate can’t cash the check.

It also reads like a warning to the reader: if your pleasure is governed by what something costs, you’re not enjoying it, you’re auditioning.