Popular quotes about Class! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Of course, an English aristocrat might have some contact with the staff downstairs and could adequately say a thing or two about inter-class dramas unfolding in the household. But something less parochial might be harder to come by. This is relevant because stories about the divisiveness of class are by definition stories that straddle class boundaries. A story about a miner in a mining town is not obviously one that speaks to the divisiveness of class. In other words, class doesn't just divide us in the world but it also divides us in the stories we're presented.
Zia Haider RahmanI think the working-class part of me comes out. Sometimes the people who have the loudest mouths are upper-class, upper-middle-class. The quietest are often working-class people, people who are broke. There is a fear of losing whatever it is that you have. I come from that background.
Billie Joe ArmstrongThereโs class warfare, all right, but itโs my class, the rich class, thatโs making war, and weโre winning.
Warren BuffettAs thinkers, mankind has ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness; the first class beginning to think from the data of the senses, the second class perceive that the senses are not final and say, The senses give us representations of things, but what are the things themselves, they cannot tell. The materialist insists on facts, on history, on the force of circumstances and the animal wants of man; the idealists on the power of Thought and Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on individual culture.
Ralph Waldo EmersonNow we are proud that the government has moved from the class of the exploiters to the class of the people who were being exploited. And in the great name of the same class, I raise this nation's flag which is a strong symbol of this transfer.
Nur Muhammad TarakiI get really worried, like if they say, 'Take vocal lessons,' or something because it's kind of like I used to really love to draw when I was a kid and then I took like an art class - because everyone said, 'Oh, you're so good, you should take a class and maybe you can be really good,' and then I went to the class and then they showed me how to use a ruler and perspective and all this stuff and it totally made me not want to do it at all.
Eddie VedderI had a really bad blushing problem when I was younger. The first time I ever performed was in an English class. I had an essay that I was supposed to write, and, instead of writing an essay, I wrote a song. So, I was playing this song in class, and I literally turned the color of this sweater that I was wearing, completely red. I think it was that feeling of challenging everything in me, my introverted personality. Like, "This is what you have to do. It doesn't matter if you do it wrong, you just have to do it."
Caitlin RoseThe initial 18th-, 19th-century intention was to give the less-educated lower classes a way to move up into this new, rising middle class, to enable them to fit in. So our view of language as being class-based is an unintended consequence of the drive to help educate rising businessmen.
Kory StamperI'd love if people relearned the lessons of the 20th century all over again. Which is to say this country progressed economically and socially when we had a better balance between capital and labor. Neither capital or labor won every argument. The battle between the two created economic tension, and transformed the working class into the middle class, and grew the economy.
David SimonYour biggest challenge is a middle class mindset; PFS goes against the traditional, middle class way of thinking.
Shane PerryIt's time for the wealthy to pay their fair share before the middle class becomes the forgotten class.- And it's time for the banks to give back what they were given. There are those in politics, particularly those on the conservative side, who can't get enough of telling people that the wealthy one per cent must not be taxed because doing so kills jobs. The real job-killers are corporate greed and political expediency. It's time for working people in Maine and all across the country to take back the American dream.
Stephen KingNow, 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 RubioMy brother, who's a few years older then me, went to college in New York. He said all of these people from Saturday Night Live do improv together in Upright Citizens Brigade, and I thought, "Oh, that sounds really cool." So when I got braces and couldn't play music anymore, I said to my parents that I wanted to go to New York and take a class at that place. They were remarkably on board with it. I got on the train, went up, took a class and I loved it.
Zach WoodsI think the mild Aspergers have always been there. You see, Asperger's diagnosis did not become common in the U.S. until the early '90s. And an Aspergers has more or less normal speech development and they've always been here, that hasn't changed. I can think back to when I was in high school, this is 40 years ago, I could name kids in my high school class and college class that, today, would be diagnosed as Aspergers.
Temple GrandinI was the class podiatrist. I never made it to class clown. I wasn't funny enough. I would examine feet and prescribe and ointment. It was a sad childhood.
Gilbert GottfriedI was a working class Jewish girl. In my girlhood, anti-Semitism was a daily fact of life in Detroit. I did not come from people who had many options in their lives or many choices open to them. I was a girl in a family in which women were, as in society at large, very much second-class citizens. I did not see why I should accept these forced limitations without a fight. Being free to make my own choices thus became very important to me at an early age.
Marge PiercyI took a public speaking class in college and managed to make the class laugh a little bit.
Kevin JamesBoth for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.
Karl MarxWe'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 TrumpThese men [medical doctors] plan ways of doubling their incomes and come to the public with the plea that they are sincerely interested in the health and welfare of our children and that they put over their income-increasing programs for the health of our babies and for the welfare of the school children. They are as cold-blooded as any class of criminals on the whole earth. Indeed, I know of no other class of criminals who live by crippling, maiming and killing babies and children.
Herbert M. SheltonI'm often in conversations with people who have learning disabilities, and they talk about how they were teased and perhaps laughed at sometimes as children. That was never the case with me. Maybe it was something about my personality, my temperament, but I don't ever remember being teased. I remember the awkwardness of leaving class to go to a special class, but that's all.
Jerry PinkneyThe Trump administration's economic agenda is the right agenda. Corporate taxes have been driving capital and brains and companies overseas for a decade. It has caused huge damage in investment and jobs and productivity. It was a mistake. We have to fix it. Counterintuitively, that usually helps middle-class wages, and lower-class wages, and job formation.
Jamie DimonOur enemies are all those in league with imperialism - the warlords, the bureaucrats, the comprador class, the big Landlord class and the reactionary section of the intelligentsia attached to them. The leading force in our revolution is the industrial proletariat. Our closest friends are the entire semi-proletariat and petty bourgeoisie. As for the vacillating middle bourgeoisie, their right wing may become our enemy and their left wing may become our friend - but we must be constantly on our guard and not let them create confusion within our ranks.
Mao ZedongI grew up in dance studios. I was forced to be in several numbers in recitals and dance competitions. I took one tap class - literally one class - and then I quit.
Michael AngaranoThe Supreme Court consistently favors organized money and the political privileges of the corporate class. We have a Senate that is more responsive to affluent constituents than to middle-class constituents, while the opinions of constituents in the bottom third of income distribution have no apparent effect at all on the Senate's roll call votes.
Bill MoyersThe university and in a general way, all teaching systems, which appear simply to disseminate knowledge, are made to maintain a certain social class in power; and to exclude the instruments of power of another social class.
Michel FoucaultOne of the highlights of my career was playing first class rugby for my province, which was Wellington. Another highlight was playing first class rugby with my brothers. Not many brothers get to do that. I can't explain what it felt like to be out there, playing with them. It was a great feeling.
Filo TiatiaMy 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 ShinodaMy classroom is set up to accommodate the different types of assignments students do. Sitting at a single desk the entire class time just doesnt work for this type of class.
Christine TaylorI was not the one to invent lies: they were created in a society divided by class and each of us inherited lies when we were born. It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lies: it is by eradicating class by any means necessary.
Jean-Paul SartreTuesdayโwe had school for the first time. Madame OโMalley had a moment of silence at the beginning of French class, a class that was always punctuated with long moments of silence, and then asked us how we were feeling. โAwful,โ a girl said. โEn franรงais,โ Madame OโMalley replied. โEn franรงais.
John GreenNo class is safe unless government is so arranged that each class has in its hands the means of protecting itself. That is the idea of republics.
Wendell PhillipsPoliticians refuse to modernize schools, they cut out midnight basketball, but build all these new jails. First class jails, second class schools. This is zero tolerance.
Jesse JacksonThe fact of the matter is that the U.S. is run by an unusually class-conscious, dedicated business class that has a very violent labor history, much worse than in Europe.
Noam ChomskyThere is a working class - strong and happy - among both rich and poor: there is an idle class - weak, wicked, and miserable - among both rich and poor.
John RuskinA third-class carriage is a community, while a first-class carriage is a place of wild hermits.
Gilbert K. ChestertonWhite working-class voters or working-class voters have felt abandoned, have felt, in many senses, disparaged by the political leadership of America.
Mark ShieldsI was always the class clown and got kicked out of class at least once a day for just being a goofball. Not suspended or anything, just sit outside and look at the tree on the bench. I got benched a lot. You keep one foot on the bench and try to get as far away as possible.
Damon Wayans, Jr.And 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 RussThe whole struggle of our Party (and of the working class movement in Europe generally) must be directed against opportunism. The latter is not a current of opinion, not a tendency; it (opportunism) has now become the organised tool of the bourgeoisie within the working class movement.
Vladimir LeninYou can't wait neoliberalism out, because the class war will become more consolidated; the punishing state will increase. They'll increasingly solve problems by putting more people in jail and by criminalizing all kinds of behaviors and by appealing to racist attitudes about immigrants, blacks, minorities. They'll just intensify class warfare, that's all. It'll get to the point where the true nature of the authoritarian state will be obvious.
Henry GirouxI'm very involved in FIU. I'm class of '96 and my wife is class of '97. I'm a member of the foundation board. We talk about where the university is strategically and the evolution of programs for the near and distant future.
Danny PinoAfter the countrywide victory of the Chinese revolution and the solution of the land problem, two basic contradictions will still exist in China. The first is internal, that is, the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie. The second is external, which is the contradiction between China and the imperialist countries. Consequently, after the victory of the people's democratic revolution, the state power of the people's republic under the leadership of the working class must not be weakened but must be strengthened.
Mao ZedongYou can have relatively high levels of class consciousness with a lower level of class militancy than one would have expected.
Ernest MandelAs a child I used to watch clouds, and in them, see faces, castles, animals, dragons, and giants. It was a world of escape--fantasy; something to inject wonder and adventure into the mundane, regulated life of a middle-class boy leading a middle-class life.
Barry B. LongyearThe library is full of stories of supposed triumphs which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm.
Kurt Vonnegut