Popular quotes about Class! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 23
In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement.
James Henry HammondI do not see class as a 'structure', nor even as a 'category', but as something which in fact happens (and can be shown to have happened) in human relationships... the notion of class entails the notion of historical relationship. ...And class happens when some men, as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs
E. P. ThompsonPresident [Barack] Obama's staking his reelection hopes on rebuilding America's middle class. He wants higher taxes on the wealthy, tougher rules on Wall Street, and everyone else to get a fair shot to succeed. Republicans can cry "class warfare" if they want, but as the president put it today, it's about this country's welfare.
Chris MatthewsIf I had to choose between baseballโs Hall of Fame and first class citizenship for all of my people. I would say first-class citizenship.
Jackie RobinsonIt is in Rousseau's writing above all that history begins to turn from upper-class honour to middle-class humanitarianism. Pity, sympathy and compassion lie at the centre of his moral vision. Values associated with the feminine begin to infiltrate social existence as a whole, rather than being confined to the domestic sphere.
Terry EagletonMy roots, my background and the way I act is working class, but it would be hypsocritical to say I'm anything else than middle class now.
John PrescottNow, the political class tries to make sense of all of this, but they can't, because never has the political class or the mainstream media that covers them been more out of touch with the American people than they are today.
Marco RubioActually we've had a black bourgeoisie or the makings of a black bourgeoisie for many more decades.In a sense the quest for the emancipation of black people in the US has always been a quest for economic liberation which means to a certain extent that the rise of black middle class would be inevitable. What I think is different today is the lack of political connection between the black middle class and the increasing numbers of black people who are more impoverished than ever before.
Angela DavisIt's a peculiar thing about liberals. When it comes to middle-class people who are fully capable of caring for themselves, liberals seek to undermine their independence in every way possible. With seductive 'entitlements' like guaranteed retirement, health care, nutrition, education, and jobs, liberals attempt to lure the middle class into dependence on the state. But when it comes to those who are truly incompetent, those whose mental afflictions render them unable to manage their lives at all, liberals are suddenly transformed into absolutists for personal autonomy.
Mona CharenAn elite class that is free to operate without limits - whether limits imposed by the rule of law or fear of the responses from those harmed by their behavior - is an elite class that will plunder, degrade, and cheat at will, and act endlessly to fortify its own power.
Glenn GreenwaldWhat I do believe absolutely is that in the middle of a recession, the American middle class and working class needs a tax relief.
Bernie SandersI really had wanted to learn Italian for a long time. I think ever since - or even maybe even before I had read Dante. And I just sort of had this idea that I wanted to read Dante in Italian. And then in my office, we actually had a class - an Italian class.
Ann GoldsteinI was shy. I was painfully shy, until fifth grade when I transferred to another school and befriended the class clown. And one day he was sick and I kinda stepped in for the class clown and I said, 'Wow, this is exciting, I'm a little bit nervous.'
Nathan FillionObama is a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament. But his character remains highly suspect.
Charles KrauthammerThe rise of globalization, the rise of finance capital, the elimination of the manufacturing base, the decimation of the working class, particularly in terms of those who had some comforts that approximated what the middle class had.
Henry GirouxFirst of all, what we [in USA] need to understand is the middle class is what makes us different and exceptional. Every country has rich people, but what has made us different throughout history is that we have this broad-based vibrant middle class.
Marco RubioWe're the highest taxed nation in the world. Our middle class is just reeling from the taxes. And you know, if you think about it, the middle class and the workers of this country, who really built the country, they haven't had a raise in 12 years. They're making less now actually - to be even worse about it, they're making less now than they did 12 years ago.
Donald TrumpWell, first of all I think that we have to be careful with terms like the working class, obviously. When [Karl] Marx wrote about the working class he was writing about something much more bounded than we're talking about.
Bill AyersI will be the one lifting that trophy, not Paolo Maldini. Imagine me hoisting the trophy. It is an image I have in my mind and I want to make it a reality. We have world-class players and, believe me, they are in the mood to do it. The atmosphere around the club at the moment is just top-class.
Steven GerrardBernie Sanders talks about socialism in Scandinavia, and he's correct to point to the huge victories the working class has won there through struggle, such as socialized medicine, free college education, and paid family leave. But if you talk to working people in Sweden or Norway today, you will find out that many of those past gains have been eroded and some virtually eliminated, including massive under-funding of healthcare and other public services and a return to for-profit systems that are unaffordable to working class people.
Kshama SawantBarack Obama's class has always been an illusion clouded in faculty lounge, lizard lounge talk, and Michelle Obama's class has actually been told us by the media that it exists, but there isn't any. There isn't anything that's real. Everything on the left is a fraud. Everything on the left is a lie.
Rush LimbaughThe master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
Eugene V. DebsI got into trouble a lot in school. They say you're a disturbance in class. You're a distraction, they're moving you around. You never really get rewarded in class for being funny. You're a disturbance. But the funny kid is often witty and clever and quick... they finally get a chance to express themselves when they get out of school.
GodfreyThe French need a thrashing. If the Prussians win, the centralization of state power will be useful for the centralization of the German working class. German predominance would also transfer the center of gravity of the workers' movement in Western Europe from France to Germany, and one has only to compare the movement in the two countries from 1866 until now to see that the German working class is superior to the French both theoretically and organizationally.
Karl MarxMy dad remembers being in school with my uncle, and the teacher would say outright to the class that the Japanese were second-class citizens and shouldn't be trusted.
Mike ShinodaI think improv training really orients you to character development, more than taking a Strasberg class or Meisner class. Not only is it about developing character really quickly, but it's also about being a good partner in the scene.
Michael ShannonNo class of Americans, so far as I know, has ever objected . . . to any amount of governmental meddling if it appeared to benefit that particular class.
Carl L. BeckerHigh culture always isolates, always drives men out of their class, and makes it more difficult for them to share naturally and easily the common class-life around them. They seek the few companions who can understand them, and when these are not to be had within a traversable distance, they sit and work alone.
Philip Gilbert HamertonYou want to be upper class, you want to be first class, but when the plane crash, everybody dead.
Kanye WestPoets and painters are outside the class system, or rather they constitute a special class of their own, like the circus people and the Gypsies.
Gerald BrenanThe first step to this end is to develop peace and goodwill within our borders, by training our youth of both sexes to its practice as their habit of life, so that the jealousies of town against town, class against class and sect against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling beyond our frontiers towards our neighbours.
Robert Baden-PowellEvery man who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is no fit to rule another country must admit that one class is not fit to rule another class.
B. R. AmbedkarAnd middle-class women, although taught to value established forms, are in the same position as the working class: neither can use established forms to express what the forms were never intended to express (and may very well operate to conceal).
Joanna RussNo faction is better or worse than any other. All come from the same mould; they are all products of capitalist influence in the working class movement. And they are a poison that destroys our Party and the working class movement in Korea.
Kim Jong IlThe emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert - in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and againโฆno one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.
Daniel LevitinMiddle class was defined by having certain values and only a certain amount of money. But this new middle class seems to have absolutely no values and an unlimited amount of money.
Fran LebowitzI only took a high school acting class because there was no other class I wanted to take. I loved it, but I was always against acting as a profession. I didn't like the monetary fluctuations I saw.
Josh BrolinI do take class because I still dance, and yes, I do slip into class with the Royal Ballet from time to time.
Deborah BullAs a songwriter, I was influenced by David Bowie - a great writer. A class above everybody in so many ways. Lennon and McCartney, of course. Class stuff. David Cousins was my favorite lyricist.
Rick WakemanThere's no particular class of photograph that I think is any better than any other class. I'm always and forever looking for the image that has spirit! I don't give a damn how it got made.
Minor WhiteThe smart people who are straight are involved in simply the media management of what has turned into a slow apocalypse, spreading starvation, exacerbated class differences, toxified agriculture, so forth and so on. I don't believe the Establishment thinks there are solutions. Their policy is basically the management of panic, which is hardly a forward moving approach to the adventure of human civilization.
Terence McKennaPeople are very proud of Newcastle, very proud to come from here. This is a working class City and they just want to enjoy themselves and live life to the full. They work all week, pick their wages up at the end of the week and they spend it over a weekend by having a good time and watching the football. That's our life.
Alan Shearer