Popular quotes about Class! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 79
They talk about class warfare -- the fact of the matter is there has been class warfare for the last thirty years. It's a handful of billionaires taking on the entire middle-class and working-class of this country. And the result is you now have in America the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth and the worst inequality in America since 1928. How could anybody defend the top 400 richest people in this country owning more wealth than the bottom half of America, 150 million people?
Bernie SandersI 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 ArmstrongThere were class differences among black people then and there are class differences among black people now. There is still an assumption among many people in American society that being black is its own class, a blanket class. That, I believe, is an erroneous and deeply offensive view.
Ayana MathisImagine a ship that is sinking and needs all the available power to run the pumps to drain out the rising waters. The first class passengers refuse to cooperate because they feel hot and want to use the air-conditioner and other electrical appliances. The second-class passengers spend all their time trying to be upgraded to first-class status. The boat sinks and the passengers all drown. That is where the present approach to climate change is leading.
Matthieu RicardWe don't use the term 'working class' here because it's a taboo term. You're supposed to say 'middle class,' because it helps diminish the understanding that there's a class war going on.
Noam ChomskyIn every conversation I've had - with housewives in Mumbai, with middle-class people, upper-class, in the slums - everyone says there is an underlying consciousness of karma. That people believe in karma - that what you're putting out is going to come back. If I do something to you, the energy of it is going to come back to me in the future.
Deepak ChopraI really wanted people to pay attention to me and like me. And the class clown thing, you know? There's a weird desperation to the class clown when you really investigate it. Why are they trying to be the clown so much? They're filling some kind of hole.
Jack BlackI'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 SimonThe working class has been turned into a consuming class - a situation has been created where people value their worth by what they can afford.
Jarvis CockerMy 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 PrescottI've found that I really don't like - as most people don't about school that there are subjects which are necessary to learn but you don't really want to learn on top of those ones that you do want to learn. So to take a class for me, a class or two on subjects that I'm really, really interested in and curious about would be awesome.
Hayden PanettiereThe majority of the senior class of Vassar does not desire my company and I must confess, having read specimens of their thought and sentiments, that I do not desire the company of the majority of the senior class of Vassar.
William F. Buckley, Jr.Politicians and bureaucrats are the new upper class in Norway. It is an upper class that is growing by an increasing number of top-paid politicians in municipalities and counties. They let the people suffer, but let themselves go free.
Carl I. HagenThe scientific method of examining facts is not peculiar to one class of phenomena and to one class of workers; it is applicable to social as well as to physical problems, and we must carefully guard ourselves against supposing that the scientific frame of mind is a peculiarity of the professional scientist.
Karl PearsonThe Republican establishment, the Democrat establishment agree and accept that the media is an equal player in the ruling class. Trump has blown all of that out the window. As such, the normal ways that people in politics are controlled, the normal way that people are contained - the ways people are promoted, punished, destroyed, what have you - are all out the window where Trump is concerned. And therefore the media is considered by the ruling class to be one of the great leveling factors.
Rush LimbaughA centre of excellence is, by definition, a place where second class people may perform first class work.
Michael FaradayWe of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose.
George OrwellThe biggest issue for me is whether large numbers of Americans can begin to think that government can actually help make the country a fairer place. And that's partly a matter of policies that achieve results in terms of reducing inequality and raising middle-class and working-class incomes, which have been flat for decades. But it's also symbolic and rhetorical, it's whether Hillary Clinton can - or whoever's president - can persuade Americans that it's happening and that they can begin to trust their elected officials a little bit more and their institutions of government a little bit more.
George PackerThe maxim is, that whatever can be affirmed (or denied) of a class, may be affirmed (or denied) of everything included in the class. This axiom, supposed to be the basis of the syllogistic theory, is termed by logicians the dictum de omni et nullo.
John Stuart MillA more or less accurate measure of class in America is TV size: the bigger your TV, the lower your class.
Paul FussellTalking about success in society, no one can complain, because today everyone can choose what he or she wants. They don't just have to choose between being proletarian or middle-class. Those kinds of things do not exist anymore. Today working class boys can play football and become multimillionaires. On football! There are no longer classes, who say that we are poor, we are suppressed by you etc.
Odd NerdrumWe might be on the brink of an apocalypse if, instead of poor people with suicide bombs killing middle class guys, middle-class people with suicide bombs started killing rich guys.
Bruce SterlingI put my children first, but I always keep my obligations or my commitments. You really have to do some internal work to know yourself, know what you're capable of. See how many meetings you can take a day or how much work you can get through in a day. Give it lots of proper time and respect, but also give yourself the respect of having your downtime, whether that means yoga, pilates, a meditation class, or a cooking class.
Rachel RoyThe billionaire class fully understands what is at stake. That's why a handful of them are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the current elections. Their goal is not to strengthen the middle class, but continue the trend in which the rich are getting richer at the expense of everyone else.
Bernie SandersChinais a world class if not the world class property bubble, primarily high-rise buildings, offices and condos.
James ChanosClass is rarely talked about in the United States; nowhere is there a more intense silence about the reality of class differences than in educational settings.
Bell HooksAmerica is about class. To pretend that it isn't is very ignorant. No society has ever existed without some kind of a ruling class.
Lewis H. LaphamThe Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.
Eugene V. Debs[The word class has] been excised from the acceptable political vocabulary, except in the limited usage of right-wingers when they accuse liberals of inciting 'class warfare' - a charge that means it's okay for rich people to vote their economic interests but it's not all right to encourage poor people to do so.
Harry ShearerI'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time.... What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything.
George Bernard ShawWe all like to think of ourselves as a standard, and I can see that it is genuinely difficult for the English middle class to suppose that the working class is not desperately anxious to become just like itself. I am afraid this must be unlearned.
Raymond WilliamsPoliticians 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 JacksonMy students - all adults - bring a lot of writing skill to the first class, and they and I get better as the class progresses.
James ThayerI 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.
Jodi SweetinWhat we have to do is make sure that here in America, if you work hard, you can get ahead. If you worked hard, not only did you have a good job, but you also had decent benefits, decent health care. We've got to make sure that we're doing everything we can to expand the middle class and people who are working hard can get into the middle class.
Barack ObamaMy teacher in the seventh grade told me that if I didn't fool around during class, I could have 15 minutes at the end of the day to do a comedy routine. Instead of bugging everybody, I'd figure out my routine. And at the end of the day, I'd get to perform in front of my entire class. I thought it was really smart of her. It's amazing how important that was.
Jim CarreyWhat I think I represent is a patriot who has no political baggage behind him that has dedicated his entire life to serving America and all segments of our citizenship. I think I bring an element of appeal to a very broad spectrum of Texans to include veterans, the middle class, the lower class and the Hispanic population, obviously. But, also, I think there is this leadership quality that has to be taken into consideration.
Ricardo SanchezAnd 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 RussI remember when I took the role on E.R., I thought, 'I haven't really been able to play a working class woman. I've played girls, I've played funny, but I haven't played a working class woman. That sounds like something I'd like to do.
Linda CardelliniI myself am consummately middle class. We grew up in upper-middle-class suburbs in Oklahoma City, and thats very much the same ethos as what Richard Yates and John Cheever wrote about.
Blake BaileyAs a person of color, you're in a PhD level racism class, every day. Every day, I'm in a deep racism seminar. And I'm not saying that white people aren't taking that class, but they don't show up that often and they're auditing it.
W. Kamau BellThe acting background helped a lot when I started writing. I was training for it. In acting class they teach you about the stakes in a scene (and) what motivates characters. When you bring a scene to class - as an actor with your scene partner - you have to do everything. There's no producer, set decorator or anything like that. You and you partner have to do everything and that's kind of like facing the blank page as a writer.
Carol Higgins ClarkLucas: I wanted to talk to you after class, but you disappeared. Me: I have another class right after. One of those profs who stops talking, stares at you and waits until you get to your seat if you're late. Lucas: I would probably just walk to my seat even slower. ;)
Tammara WebberAs 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 Wakeman