Class Quotes - Page 3

• It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.

  Mark Twain

  Criminals, Literature, Politics

  Following the Equator ch. 8, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar" (1897)

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• I have to live for others and not for myself: that's middle-class morality.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Self, Pygmalion, Live For Others

  Pygmalion (1916) act 5

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• A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of government as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by government. Somewhere in between and In gradations is the group that has the sense that gov't exists for it, and shapes its consciousness accordingly.

  Lionel Trilling

  Thinking, Government, Groups

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• Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It's the sure-footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life.

  Ann Landers

  Inspirational, Life, Leadership

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• The intellectual is a middle-class product; if he is not born into the class he must soon insert himself into it, in order to exist. He is the fine nervous flower of the bourgeoisie.

  Louise Bogan

  Flower, Order, Intellectual

  Louise Bogan (1970). “A Poet's Alphabet: Reflections on the Literary Art and Vocation”, New York : McGraw-Hill

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• Between richer and poorer classes in a free country a mutually respecting antagonism is much healthier than pity on the one hand and dependence on the other, as is, perhaps, the next best thing to fraternal feeling.

  Charles Horton Cooley

  Country, Hands, Feelings

  Charles Horton Cooley (1992). “Human Nature and the Social Order”, p.137, Transaction Publishers

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• Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!

  Karl Marx

  Country, Communication, Winning

  Karl Marx (2013). “The Communist Manifesto”, p.116, Simon and Schuster

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• Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.

  Mao Zedong

  Struggle, Years, Civilization

  Zedong Mao (1972). “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung”, p.8, China Books

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• For the duration of its collective life, or the time during which its identity may be assumed, each class resembles a hotel or an omnibus, always full, but always of different people.

  Joseph A. Schumpeter

  People, Identity, Different

  Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1955). “Imperialism and Social Classes: Two Essays”, p.126, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Ignorance, Simple, Civilization

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2015). “Democracy in America - Vol. I. and II.”, p.336, Read Books Ltd

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• Every 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. Ambedkar

  Country, Men, Politics

  Dr B.R. Ambedkar (2014). “Annihilation of Caste”, p.30, Ssoft Group, INDIA

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• They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them: they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be. What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them. There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.

  William Hazlitt

  Life, Glasses, Hands

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• You can pay for school, but you can't buy class

  Jay-Z

  School, Inspire, Pay

  Song: Swagga Like Us

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• The working-class is now issuing from its hiding-place to assert an Englishman's heaven-born privilege of doing as he likes, and is beginning to perplex us by marching where it likes, meeting where it likes, bawling what it likes, breaking what it likes.

  Matthew Arnold

  Heaven, Likes, Privilege

  'Culture and Anarchy' (1869) ch. 3

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• Teachers wondered why I didn't speak up more in class. Why would I when I knew how precarious words could be, how betraying they were, how vulnerable they made you?

  Justina Chen

  Teacher, Speak, Vulnerable

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• We 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 Orwell

  Fear, Struggle, May

  The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) ch. 13

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• The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.

  Karl Marx

  Philosophical, Struggle, History

  "Karl Marx as Activist" by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.counterpunch.org. May 7, 2018.

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• What I call middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery. I call middle-class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt. And I think that a man who takes a stand against this death is in a sense a revolutionary.

  Frantz Fanon

  Men, Thinking, Air

  Frantz Fanon (1967). “Black Skin, White Masks”, p.224, Pluto Press

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• The most perfect political community must be amongst those who are in the middle rank, and those states are best instituted wherein these are a larger and more respectable part, if possible, than both the other; or, if that cannot be, at least than either of them separate.

  Aristotle

  Perfect, Community, Political

  Aristotle (1919). “A treatise on government: translated from the Greek of Aristotle”

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• If a working class Englishman saw a bloke drive past in a Rolls-Royce, he'd say to himself "Come the social revolution and we'll take that away from you, mate". Whereas if his American counterpart saw a bloke drive past in a Cadillac he'd say "One day I'm going to own one of those". To my way of thinking the first attitude is wrong. The latter is right.

  Kerry Packer

  Encouragement, Attitude, Thinking

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• I quit school in the sixth grade because of pneumonia. Not because I had it, but because I couldn't spell it.

  Rocky Graziano

  Funny, Sports, School

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• The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Country, History, Effort

  Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (2012). “Essential Works of Lenin: "What Is to Be Done?" and Other Writings”, p.74, Courier Corporation

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• The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Years, Politics, Communist Manifesto

  "The State and Revolution". Chapter 5, www.marxists.org. 1917.

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• The stand up, everything was accidental. I never grew up and was the class clown and had to get the attention. It was - it really is, I have a career despite myself.

  Ellen DeGeneres

  Careers, Attention, Clown

  "Ellen DeGeneres to Ann Curry: 'I don't like a lot of attention.'". Interview with Ann Curry, www.today.com. October 3, 2011.

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• I was the one of those students who made the top half of the class possible.

  Michael Bloomberg

  Half, Students, Made

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