Best Class Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 11

“The office of the leisure class in social evolution is to retard the movement and to conserve what is obsolescent. This proposition is by no means novel; it has long been one of the commonplaces of popular opinion.”

Mean Long Social Opinion Class Novel Movement Evolution Office Leisure Propositions Commonplace Retard Popular Opinion

Book:The Theory of the Leisure Class

Source: The Theory of the Leisure Class

“The taste of the more recent accessions to the leisure class proper and of the middle and lower classes still requires a pecuniary beauty to supplement the aesthetic beauty, even in those objects which are primarily admired for the beauty that belongs to them as natural growths.”

Stills Growth Natural Class Middle Objects Taste Aesthetic Leisure Supplements Lower Class Aesthetic Beauty

Book:The Theory of the Leisure Class

Source: The Theory of the Leisure Class

“Conservatism, being an upper-class characteristic, is decorous; and conversely, innovation, being a lower-class phenomenon, is vulgar. ...Innovation is bad form.”

Form Class Innovation Characteristics Phenomenon Vulgar Conservatism Upper Class Lower Class

Book:The Theory of the Leisure Class

Source: The Theory of the Leisure Class

“The American farmer, whose holdings were not so extensive as those of the grandee nor so tiny as those of the peasant, whose psychology was Protestant and bourgeois, and whose politics were petty-capitalist rather than traditionalist, had no reason to share the social outlook of the rural classes of Europe. In Europe land was limited and dear, while labor was abundant and relatively cheap; in America the ratio between land and labor was inverted.”

Reason America Social Class Psychology Share Land Europe Labor Dear Tiny No Reason Farmers Capitalist Outlook Petty Peasants Bourgeois Protestants Ratios Inverted

Author:Richard Hofstadter

“It is the historic glory of the intellectual class of the West in modern times that, of all the classes which could be called in any sense privileged, it has shown the largest and most consistent concern for the well-being of the classes which lie below it in the social scale.”

Wells Lying Social Class Modern Intellectual Glory Concern West Scales Well Being Consistent Privileged Historic Modern Times

Book:Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

Source: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

“If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable - and this is why we are the enemies of the State.”

Ifs States Results Enemy Class Slavery Domination Unthinkable

Author:Mikhail Bakunin

“Daily life is a comprimised blend of posturing for the sake of role-playing and of varying degrees of self-revelation. Under stressful conditions even the "true" self cannot be precisely defined, as Erving Goffman observes. ...Little wonder that the identity crisis is a major source of modern neuroticism, and that the urban middle class aches for a return to a simpler existence.”

“The self-discipline of the Social Democracy is not merely the replacement of the authority of bourgeois rulers with the authority of a socialist central committee. The working class will acquire the sense of the new discipline, the freely assumed self-discipline of the Social Democracy, not as a result of the discipline imposed on it by the capitalist state, but by extirpating, to the last root, its old habits of obedience and servility.”

“The salient feature of America in the Age of Obama is a failed government class institutionally committed to living beyond its means, and a citizenry too many of whom are content to string along.”

Mean Government Age America Class Ignorance Committed Debt Features Hypocrisy Strings Citizenry

Author:Mark Steyn

“What would happen if capital succeeded in smashing the Republic of Soviets? There would set in an era of the blackest reaction in all the capitalist and colonial countries, the working class and the oppressed peoples would be seized by the throat, the positions of international communism would be lost.”

Ifs Country Happens Would Be Lost Class Position International Reactions Communism Eras Republic Throat Capitalist Oppressed Working Class Smashing

Author:Joseph Stalin

“The correct relationship between the higher and lower classes, the appropriate mutual interaction between the two is, as such, the true underlying support on which the improvement of the human species rests. The higher classes constitute the mind of the single large whole of humanity; the lower classes constitute its limbs; the former are the thinking and designing [ Entwerfende ] part, the latter the executive part.”

Thinking Mind Humans Two Whole Humanity Class Support Design Higher Species Improvement Former Appropriate Latter Executives Mutual Interaction Limbs Human Species Lower Class

Author:Johann Gottlieb Fichte

“When the Democrats are attacked for [inciting class warfare] they shrink back. They don't say what obviously should be said, "Yes, there is class warfare. There has always been class warfare in this country." The reason the Democrats shrink back is because the Democrats and the Republicans are on the same side of the class war. They have slightly different takes. The Democrats are part of the upper class that is more willing to make concessions to the lower class in order to maintain their power.”

Should Said Different War Country Reason Order Sides Class Willing Republican Democrat Warfare Shrinks Concessions Upper Class Class Warfare Lower Class

Author:Howard Zinn

“While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not. A study of the origins of 303 textile, railroad and steel executives of the 1870s showed that 90 percent came from middle- or upper-class families. The Horatio Alger stories of "rags to riches" were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control.”

Men Stories Wealth Class Poverty Study Middle Percent Myth Riches Executives Steel Rags Railroads Upper Class Horatio Textiles Rags To Riches

Book:A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

Source: A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

“I think women of a certain generation, mine in particular, feel like we can have it all because that's what we were fed. It's like, we reap the benefits of the feminist movement - they did all the legwork and now we're going to try to be parents and successful business people and great wives and good friends and take a cooking class and blah, blah, blah.”

“I don't believe there is one woman within the confines of this state who does not believe in birth control. I never met one. That is, I never met one who thought that she should be kept in ignorance of contraceptive methods. Many I have met who valued the knowledge they possessed, but thought there were certain other classes who would be better kept in ignorance. The old would protect the young. The rich would keep the poor in ignorance. The good would keep their knowledge from the bad, the strong from the weak.”

Source: Crystal Eastman on women and revolution

“If there are indeed any iron laws of history, one of them is surely that in any major crisis of the capitalist system, a sector of the liberal middle class will shift to the left, and then shift smartly back again once the crisis has blown over.”

Ifs Law Left Class Middle Majors Crisis Middle Class Iron Capitalist Back Again

Author:Terry Eagleton

“Capitalism cannot survive without a working class, while the working class can flourish a lot more freely without capitalism.”

Class Capitalism Working Class

Author:Terry Eagleton

“The controversy between rule of law and rule of men was never relevant to women because, along with juveniles, imbeciles, and other classes of legal nonpersons, they had no access to law except through men.”

Men Law Class Access Relevant Controversy Rule Of Law Imbeciles Laws And Rules

Author:Freda Adler

“Imagine that leader of all the enemy, in that great plain of Babylon, sitting on a sort of throne of smoking flame, a horrible and terrifying sight. Watch him calling together countless devils, to despatch them into different cities till the whole world is covered, forgetting no province or locality, no class or single individual.”

Source: The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola

“It would be hard to find a single example in history in which a group that cast more than 50 percent of the vote got away with calling itself the victim... Women are the only 'oppressed' group to share the same parents as the 'oppressor'; to be born into the middle class and upper class as frequently as the 'oppressor'; to own more of the culture's luxury items than the 'oppressor'.”

Source: The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex

“I have no intention of slurring over the differences we have with socialism, nor concealing my belief that we are the National Party of Great Britain, representing not narrow class interest, nor the bigotry of the left wing intellectuals, but all those who support the British tradition of democracy, of personal freedom, of personal responsibility for one's own affairs and those of one's family, with the least possible interference from the State.”

“Whether sociology can ever become a full-fledged "science" (a description of a class of events predictable on the basis of deductions from a constant rationale) depends on whether the terms which sociologists employ to describe events can be analyzed into quantifiable observables.”

Term Class Events Depends Bases Constant Description Sociology Predictable Deductions Sociologists

Author:Anatol Rapoport

“Cockburn's personal history links him to the politics of the Communist Party, and there are still moments in his writing - debating the number of people estimated to have perished in Stalin's gulags, claiming that 'the Brezhnev years were a Golden Age for the Soviet working class', when aspects of his father's convictions can be glimpsed.”

“Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition, and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery. Equality of rights is a peculiar feature of democracies. These rights are properly divided into civil and political, though even these definitions are not to be taken as absolute, or as literally exact.”

“What foolsmiddle-classgirls are to expect other people to respect the same gods as themselves and E M Forster.”

People Class

Author:Margaret Drabble

“Lord Salisbury constitutes himself the spokesman of a class, of the class to which he himself belongs, who'toil not neither do they spin'.”

Lord Class Toil

Author:Joseph Chamberlain

“the principles of political economy have elevated the working class above the place they ever filled before.”

Political Class Principles Economy Filled Working Class Political Economy

Book:Speeches on Questions of Public Policy

Source: Speeches on Questions of Public Policy

“We still retain in Britain a deeper sense of class, a more obvious social stratification, and stronger class resentments, than any of the Scandinavian, Australasian, or North American countries.”

Stills Country Social Class Stronger Obvious Deeper Britain Resentment Scandinavians

Author:Anthony Crosland

“Objectively, class differences in accent, dress, manners, and general style of life are very much smaller; and one cannot, strolling about the street or travelling on a train, instantly identify a person's social background as one can in England. Subjectively, social relations are more natural and egalitarian, and less marked by deference, submissiveness, or snobbery, as one quickly discovers from the cab-driver, the barman, the air-hostess and the drug-store assistant.”

“A high proportion of the population enjoys many of the 'luxuries' which until recently were considered the prerogative of the rich; and the ordinary worker lives at what even two decades ago would have been considered in Britain a middle-class standard of life.”

Has Beens Two Enjoy Class Rich Middle Standards Ordinary Workers Population Decades Luxury Proportion Britain Middle Class Prerogative

Author:Anthony Crosland

“I don't know enough about the lower classes to write about them. I don't feel with them, and that could be regarded as a defect, a limitation of my imagination. I could put myself in their position, but not politically. The idea of writing a story or a book about somebody completely devoid of appreciation of anything I care about is completely foreign to me.”

Knows Feels Writing Book Ideas Enough Stories Care Imagination Class Position Appreciation Limitation I Care Defects My Imagination Lower Class

Author:Louis Auchincloss

“As the classes in modern life come together, we have become much more intensely class conscious. It's a very curious thing. But I deal with human beings with whom I've come in contact and have had a chance to closely observe. Their upper-classness is not a matter of particular fascination for me.”

Humans Matter Together Chance Human Beings Deals Class Modern Particular Conscious Contact Curious Fascination Modern Life

Author:Louis Auchincloss

“I don't do any Class A - especially not cocaine - after seeing what it does to people.”

People Doe Class Seeing Cocaine

Author:Kate Moss

“Choosing education is a very good decision, not only good for the student, but also for our country. The United States was the first nation in history to recognize that public education for every citizen, regardless of class or station, was vital to its future . . .”

Firsts Country States Nations Decision United Class United States Students Citizens Very Good Our Country Stations Public Education Good Decision

Book:No Apology: The Case for American Greatness

Source: No Apology: The Case for American Greatness

“There is already a generation of European graduates who feel they have been robbed of the better future they were led to expect. They are members of a new class: the precariat.”

Feels Has Beens Class Generations Members Graduates Better Future New Class

Author:Timothy Garton Ash

“Equal wealth and equal opportunities of culture have simply made us all members of one class.”

Made Culture Opportunity Wealth Class Equal Members Equal Opportunity

Author:Edward Bellamy

“Empires are synonymous with centralized if occasionally schismatized hierarchical power structures in which influence is restricted to an economically privileged class retaining its advantages through usually a judicious use of oppression and skilled manipulation of both the society's information dissemination systems and its lesser as a rule nominally independent power systems. In short, it's all about dominance.”

Ifs Use Class Influence Information Advantage Independent Structure Oppression Empires Manipulation Privileged Dominance Retaining Dissemination

Book:The Player Of Games: A Culture Novel

Source: The Player Of Games: A Culture Novel

“[On yoga] Once you've completed a wonderful class, you get a sense of the deepest, purest part of yourself. You feel like you are connected to everybody else in the world.”

World Feels Class Wonderful Like You Yoga Connected

Author:Jennifer Beals

“To spread healthy ideas among even the lowest classes of people, to remove men from the influence of prejudice and passion, to make reason the arbiter and supreme guide of public opinion; that is the essential goal of the sciences; that is how science will contribute to the advancement of civilization, and that is what deserves protection of governments who want to insure the stability of their power.”

“There isn't much I find interesting to write about in middle-class life.”

Writing Interesting Class Middle Middle Class Middle Class Life

Author:Jarvis Cocker

“Aline and I have travelled a very long, very hard road together, from our working class homes in rural Quebec to the palaces of London, Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Politics was the route, public service the reward.”

Long Hard Home Together Class Rewards London Paris Working Class Routes Palaces Public Service Moscow Quebec Beijing

Book:My Years as Prime Minister

Source: My Years as Prime Minister

“The great goal of the backlash is to nurture a cultural class war, and the first step in doing so, as we have seen, is to deny the economic basis of social class. After all, you can hardly deride liberals as society's "elite" or present the GOP as the party of the common man if you acknowledge the existence of the corporate world - the power that creates the nation's real elite, that dominates its real class system, and that wields the Republican Party as its personal political sidearm.”

“I didn't make any kind of grades in high school. My mother was a single mom, putting my three sisters through college, and I was such a bad student that I knew I had no right to take her money. But I loved being in classes and learning. I took in a huge amount of what I learned, but I had a feeling of always being behind and being in trouble.”

Kind Feelings School Mother Three Behinds Class Trouble Students College Huge Mom Amount High School Grades Single Mom Three Sisters

Author:Louis C. K.

“I don't enjoy the diminishing agility of the body!I had knee surgery and I no longer can go do three yoga classes and run. It's not as much fun, physically. But emotionally, it's way more fun. I am so much happier and contented and less agitated - I'm just calmer. So it's like everything in this human existence, it's a trade off - it's like you trade the virility of the body for the agility of the spirit. That's a good line. I have to remember that!”

Way Humans Body Running Remember Spirit Three Fun Enjoy Lines Existence Class Like You Yoga Trade Knees Surgery Human Existence Agility Trade Offs Calmer

Author:Elizabeth Lesser

“Modern Australian trade unionism and the unionist that I am doesn't rely on a class war view that somehow that the interests of employees and managers are in two separate spheres and they're irreconcilable. I believe that when people can go to work and be happy, satisfied, engaged, where the employer is getting employees who feel their interests are aligned with the employer, you get productivity. This is the future of Australian workplaces.”

People Feels Believe Two War I Believe Interest Views Class Modern Trade Productivity Satisfied Managers Engaged Rely Employee Spheres Workplace Employers Australian Unionism

Author:Bill Shorten

“I believe that the free enterprise system is the greatest engine of prosperity the world's ever known. I believe in self-reliance and individual initiative and risk-takers being rewarded. But I also believe that everybody should have a fair shot and everybody should do their fair share and everybody should play by the same rules, because that's how our economy's grown. That's how we built the world's greatest middle class.”

“Michael Jackson was part of that tremendous wave in the ocean of human expression and it happened to be located first and foremost in Gary, Indiana, working class.”

Firsts Humans Class Happened Expression Ocean Wave Working Class Indiana Gary

Author:Cornel West

“Of one man in especial, beyond anyone else, the citizens of a republic should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to support him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the republic, that he will secure for those who elect him, in one shape or another, profit at the expense of other citizens of the republic. It makes no difference whether he appeals to class hatred or class interest, to religious or anti-religious prejudice. The man who makes such an appeal should always be presumed to make it for the sake of furthering his own interest.”

“Strictly speaking, no person who believes that wars between classes and nations are inevitable is fit to be in charge of the destiny of children. To believe in the unity of the human race and get children to believe it in early youth would mean the creation of that unity and the end of war.”

Believe Humans Mean Children Persons War Ends Nations Race Class Destiny Creation Youth Fit Unity Inevitable Human Race

Author:Dora Russell

“The black middle-class in America is a prosperous community that is now larger in absolute terms than the black underclass. Does its existence not suggest that economic adversity is the result of failures of individual character rather than the lingering after-effects of racial discrimination and a slave system that ceased to exist well over a century ago?”

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Class Quotes