Quotes About Class

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.

The United States is a special case, and for me, very interesting. It's studied carefully and we know a lot about it. One of the most striking features of the elections is the class-based character of the vote. Now, class is not discussed or even measured in the United States. In fact, the word is almost obscene, except for the term "middle class." And you can't get exact class data; the census doesn't even give class data. But you can sort of see the significance of it just from income figures.

The third class of evils comprise those which everyone causes to himself by his own action. This is the largest class, and is far more numerous than the second class. It is especially of these evils that all men complain, - only few men are found that do not sin against themselves by this kind of evil. ...This class of evil originates in man's vices, such as excessive desire for eating, drinking, and love; indulgence in these things in undue measure, or in improper manner, or partaking of bad food. This course brings diseases and afflictions upon the body and soul alike.

The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose - especially their lives.

There's no class to manage people. There's no class to teach on how to handle millions. There's no class to teach us how to manage time.

The war against working people should be understood to be a real war…. Specifically in the U.S., which happens to have a highly class-conscious business class…. And they have long seen themselves as fighting a bitter class war, except they don’t want anybody else to know about it.

You have different levels of players. There's are Premier League, international and world-class levels. The world-class level is players at the peak of their career and there's only maybe 50 maximum in the whole world. Stevie moved from a Premier League player to an international player and then world class.

When I miss class for one day, I know it. When I miss class for two days, my teacher knows it. When I miss class for three days, the audience knows it.

The really successful work in England tends to be working-class writers telling working-class stories. The film industry has been slow to wake up to that, for a variety of reasons. It still shocks me how few films are written or made in England about working-class life, given that those are the people who go to movies.

High tax rates in the upper income brackets allow politicians to win votes with class warfare rhetoric, painting their opponents as defenders of the rich. Meanwhile, the same politicians can win donations from the rich by creating tax loopholes that can keep the rich from actually paying those higher tax rates - or perhaps any taxes at all. What is worse than class warfare is phony class warfare. Slippery talk about 'fairness' is at the heart of this fraud by politicians seeking to squander more of the nation's resources.

I think people should be allowed to do what they want to do. I think that it doesn't make sense for a certain class to be able to get married and be treated differently when others are not. But I don't equate polygamy with same-sex marriages - and I know you don't either. Polygamy is a different story because it has different class differentiations in it.

There have been studies concluding that most people mostly know people only within their own social class - although such a conclusion would hardly surprise anyone. I think there's evidence to suggest that it's even narrower - the great majority of friends of Ivy Leaguers, for instance, are Ivy Leaguers. This narrows the pool of people who can write fiction cutting across class boundaries that's informed by their own personal experience.

The light bulb going off in my head was a fear that in this pivotal moment in history, when America faces so many serious problems, when the middle class and working class of this country are being decimated, that there were not voices out there representing the tens of millions of people who needed a voice. And the idea of going through a campaign where there is not a serious discussion about the most important issues facing America, where there are not voices out there representing people who are hurting - that seemed to me unacceptable.

In my last year of school, I was voted Class Optimist and Class Pessimist. Looking back, I realize I was only half right.

The working class has been turned into a consuming class - a situation has been created where people value their worth by what they can afford.

The first time I took a Kundalini yoga class, I cried my eyes out afterwards. I was so moved by the meditation and singing "Long Time Sun" at the end of class. I felt like I was home.

Actually 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.

Before you can write a check, you must first make out a deposit slip; before you can draw money out of a bank, you must put money into a bank; before you are entitled to a living, you must give the world a life; if you want to make a first-class living, learn to give the world a first-class life.

I 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.

You cannot trust the interests of any class entirely to another class; and you cannot trust the interests of any sex to another sex.

Stuff Happens.’ That’s the G-rated version. That’s a bumper sticker that only a straight white upper middle class male could have made. Because anyone who isn’t straight, anyone who isn’t male, anyone who isn’t white, anyone who isn’t upper middle class knows that stuff doesn’t just happen. Stuff gets done by people to people. Nothing is a coincidence. Nothing is random. This isn’t osmosis. And so we act as if it’s this passive thing, but yet that’s not the case.

Urban development initiatives must match the aspirations of the middle class and the neo middle class.

Low class men desire wealth;middle class men both wealth and respect; but the noble, honour only; hence honour is the noble man's true wealth.

Rather than showing themselves to be an ally to the middle class by ending the AMT or repealing it for years to come, my Republican colleagues refused to include it in today's legislation and America's middle class will surely suffer that choice greatly.

The progression of emancipation of any class usually, if not always, takes place through the efforts of individuals of that class.

The 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.

The economy has definitely been improving, and things like the stock market are doing better, but the economy has to be good for working-class and middle-class families who work every day, send their kids to a school like is in front of my house, and they have to be able to enjoy their lives. That's why you don't pass a trade agreement that ships even more jobs overseas.

I figured, I am a product of the opportunity the country provided, and I understand the challenges of the middle class and the lower class, and I clearly understand the dynamics at the highest levels of wealth within the country and across this global world. It became clear to me that I could represent the people of Texas - I could represent those people, that segment of society that I came from.

Class never tries to build itself up by tearing others down. Class is already up and need not strive to look better by making others look worse.

It is from the middle class that writers spring, because, it is in the middle class only that the practice of writing is as natural and habitual as hoeing a field or building a house.

If someone is very upper-class, you have a stereotype of him which is probably true. If someone has a working-class accent, you have no idea who you're talking to.

If we want to have a two-class society and an unemployed, welfare-crippled lower class that has no access to equality and educational opportunity and no access to jobs and is resentful and furiously angry, we can have it - that's what we've been willing to pay for so far.

America is about class. To pretend that it isn't is very ignorant. No society has ever existed without some kind of a ruling class.

The Democrat Party is threatened by people whose economic circumstances improve to the point that they do not need government first and foremost. That's a threat. But this happens when the U.S. economy is humming. There is a lot of upward mobility, and people leave the lower depths of poverty and start traversing a pathway through the middle class to the upper middle class, and as they leave, the Democrats have to replace them. That is what illegal immigration has been since 1965 when Ted Kennedy reintroduced the whole concept after 40 years of no immigration from 1921 to 1965.

I took a Fear of Flying class, and I always missed the class, because I was always flying.

I'm extraordinarily passionate about the idea of asteroid mining in the future. Asteroids out there, we know them from those that have fallen on the Earth, there is a class of asteroids, sub-class of nickel/iron asteroids, which are 50,000 times more enriched than Platinum mines on earth.

The 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.

I remember when the O.J. verdict was read; at my high school, all of the teachers were like, "We are stopping class right now," and turned it on and we watched it. There were people coming out of their classrooms, like, "Yeah!" Some people were like, "Nooo." I was in Spanish class.

It's still popular to ... insist that globalization is a rising tide that lifts all boats, but the hard reality is that the last thirty years have seen America's once proud and prosperous working class thrown to the wolves, so corporations could keep boosting their quarterly profits and the middle class could maintain a filmy illusion of wealth through access to cheap consumer goods.

You want to be upper class, you want to be first class, but when the plane crash, everybody dead.

When the women's movement began, it was a middle-class phenomenon. Certainly, black women had other stuff to think about in the '60s besides a women's movement. Working-class women were slow to get into it.

The Canadian middle class is under less pressure than any other middle class in any developed country on the planet. So they feel good. They feel optimistic. They feel secure.

I 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.

I was never a class clown or anything like that, but I do remember being in the first grade and my teacher, Mr. Chad, told the class one day that we were going to do some exercises. He meant math exercises, but I stood up and started doing jumping jacks. To this day, I don't know what possessed me to do that, but all my friends cracked up.

Also, because schools must teach the spirit of goodwill, the habit of helping others around you, every class should have this rule: students, if you bring software to class you may not keep it for yourself.

I'd like to see a much more open Monarchy, myself. I used to think they were completely useless and we should get rid of them. I don't necessarily feel that way anymore. I'm still ambivalent, I still loathe the British class system, and the Royal family are the apex of the British class system.

You 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.

I think success has a downside. The more successful you get and the more out there you are in the world, the more vulnerable you are and the more you are open to hate, especially because of social media. But it also depends what you class as success, because someone could do something mean and class that as success for them. But for me, if you're doing something positive that's allowing someone to have a better wellbeing, or embrace their life more, you have to go for it, but know there's always going to be people who hate on you for doing what you're doing.