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Class Quotes

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Class Quotes

“We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle-class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition.”

NeedsSufferingOrderCultureSpeakGivenBlackClassPovertyMiddleConditionsDangerousSurvivalStrategyAttractionMiddle ClassUnpredictableGhettoBlack CultureMiddle Class Life
Book:The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations
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“Of all the art forms, poetry is the most economical. It is the one which is the most secret, which requires the least physical labor, the least material, and the one which can be done between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper. ... poetry has been the major voice of poor, working class, and Colored women. A room of one's own may be a necessity for writing prose, but so are reams of paper, a typewriter, and plenty of time.”

WritingMayHas BeensArtDoneFormVoicePoorRoomsSecretClassPovertyMaterialsPaperMajorsLaborPlentyProsePoetry IsHospitalsWorking ClassSubwayScrapTypewritersSurplusPantry
Author:Audre Lorde
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“Attempts to limit female mobility by hampering locomotion are ancient and almost universal. The foot-binding of upper-class Chinese girls and the Nigerian custom of loading women's legs with pounds of heavy brass wire are extreme examples, but all over the world similar stratagems have been employed to make sure that once you have caught a woman she cannot run away, and even if she stays around she cannot keep up with you. ... Literally as well as figuratively modern women's shoes are what keeps Samantha from running as fast as Sammy.”

IfsWorldWellsHas BeensRunningGirlClassFeetModernExampleLimitsFemaleUniversalShoesAncientCaughtHeavyExtremesLegsChinesePoundsCustomsSexismRunning AwayEmployedWireBindingMobilityBrassUpper ClassStratagemModern WomanSamantha
Author:Alison Lurie
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“70% of children born into poverty will never make it to the middle class. The uncomfortable truth is that there are now a number of other countries with as much or more opportunity than ours. In fact, more people in Canada go on to surpass the income of their parents than in the United States.”

PeopleChildrenCountryStatesFactsOpportunityParentBornUnitedNumbersClassPovertyUnited StatesMiddleGoes OnTruth IsIncomeUncomfortableCanadaMiddle ClassOther Countries
Author:Marco Rubio
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“Imagine 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.”

WantNeedsFeelsTryingFirstsUseRunningWaterClassImagineAirApproachHotClimateClimate ChangeRefuseAvailableShipsBoatRisingDrainsPassengersSinkingElectricalPumpsFirst ClassAppliancesClass StatusAir ConditionerElectrical Appliances
Author:Matthieu Ricard
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“When our party took over political power, the exploiting classes and reactionary forces went into action. The only rusty and antiquated tool that they use against us is preaching in the name of faith and religion against the progressive movement of our homeland... They ought to be uprooted as a cancerous tumor is from the body of a patient in a surgical operation.”

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Author:Nur Muhammad Taraki
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“If the present White House leadership runs the gauntlet of common sense and the people's will for peace and challenges us by starting MX missile deployment, then the Soviet Union will respond by deploying a new intercontinental ballistic missile of the same class, with its characteristics in no way inferior to those of the MX.”

PeopleIfsWayRunningHouseChallengesWhiteCommonClassUnionsStartingCommon SenseCharacteristicsWhite HouseSovietInferiorsSoviet UnionMissilesDeploymentGauntletDeploying
Author:Dmitriy Ustinov
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“When in company with literary women, make no allusions to 'learned ladies,' or 'blue stockings,' or express surprise that they should have any knowledge of housewifery, or needle-work, or dress; or that they are able to talk on 'common things.' It is rude and foolish and shows that you really know nothing about them, either as a class or as individuals.”

KnowsShouldShowsAbleIndividualCommonCompanyClassShould HaveDressesBlueSurpriseFoolishRudeNeedlesAllusionStockingsCommon Things
Book:Miss Leslie's Behaviour Book: A Guide and Manual for Ladies as Regards Their Conversation; Manners; Dress; with Full Instructions and Advice in Letter Writing [!]; Receiving Presents; Incorrect Words
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“I got a flash of ... what it means, now, 'you can't be too rich or too thin.' How well it works, will keep on working, because the vast majority of women will never be thin. Thin enough. How well the hope of class mobility keeps every mother dieting, and handing the diets down to her daughter, hoping the daughter may do even better. When you combine this with the fact that many non-white peoples tend to be heavier than white folks, dieting becomes a tool not only in enforcing class but in encouraging assimilation.”

WellsMayMeanEnoughFactsMotherWomenWhiteClassRichDaughterToolsWeightMajorityFolksDietsFlashAssimilationDietingMobility
Author:Elana Dykewomon
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“Take us generally as a people, we are neither lazy nor idle; and considering how little we have to excite or stimulate us, I am almost astonished that there are so many industrious and ambitious ones to be found - although I acknowledge, with extreme sorrow, that there are some who never were and never will be serviceable to society. And have you not a similar class among yourselves?”

PeopleLittlesFoundClassHuman NatureSorrowRacismExtremesAfrican AmericanAcknowledgeLazyAmbitiousConsideringIdleIdlenessIndustrious
Author:Maria W. Stewart
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“men are not born with a faculty for the universal and ... women are not reduced at birth to the particular. The universal has been, and is continually, at every moment, appropriated by men. It does not happen by magic, it must be done. It is an act, a criminal act, perpetrated by one class against another. It is an act carried out at the level of concepts, philosophy, politics.”

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Book:The Straight Mind: And Other Essays
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“I fell in love with my country - its rivers, prairies, forests, mountains, cities and people. No one can take my love of country away from me! I felt then, as I do now, it's a rich, fertile, beautiful land, capable of satisfying all the needs of its people. It could be a paradise on earth if it belonged to the people, not to a small owning class.”

PeopleIfsNeedsCountryEarthBeautifulFeltCitiesClassUnited StatesRichLandMountainCapableRiversFalling In LoveEqualityForestsParadisePatrioticBelongingSatisfyingFertilePrairieCountry LoveParadise On EarthBeautiful Land
Book:The Rebel Girl: an autobiography, my first life (1906-1926).
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“Excellent Sheep is likely to makea lasting mark for three reasons. One, Mr. Deresiewicz spent twenty-four years in the Ivy League, graduating from Columbia and teaching for a decade at Yale.He brings the gory details. Two, the author is a striker, to put it in soccer terms. He's a vivid writer, a literary critic whose headers tend to land in the back corner of the net. Three, his indictment arrives on wheels: He takes aim at just about the entirety of upper-middle-class life in America.Mr. Deresiewicz's book is packed full of what he wants more of in American life: passionate weirdness.”

WantYearsTwoBookReasonAmericaThreeTermClassFourTeachingLandMiddleMarkTwentiesAimCriticsPassionateDetailsCornersDecadesSoccerExcellentLeagueWheelsMiddle ClassLastingFour YearsGraduatesSheepVividIvyAmerican LifeWeirdnessYaleColumbiaEntiretyIndictmentIvy LeagueStrikersUpper Middle ClassMiddle Class Life
Author:Dwight Garner
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“One of the great things about a free market is that it's inherently and indefatigably Darwinistic. Left to its own devices, a free market will eventually weed out the stupid from both 'ends' of the food chain otherwise described as supply and demand. As money is liberated from the hands of the stupid, those who would sell products or services to the stupid will eventually lose their share of the marketplace. Devoid of any 'benevolent' interference from government, the process is gloriously relentless, and cannot help but yield a successively smarter class of participants.”

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Author:Edward Britton
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“Socialists do not merely want a welfare state, they absolutely must have one. They must have a grovelling dependent class from which to obtain their daily opiate: an hallucinogenic euphoria which comes from the delusion of being superior to and more altruistic than all others. They must have 'the poor, huddled masses' in much the same manner as vampires must have the blood of their victims.”

WantStatesPoorClassBloodMassVictimSuperiorsVampireWelfareDependentDelusionWelfare StateEuphoriaOpiates
Author:Edward Britton
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“Hollywood is a showman's paradise. But showmen make nothing; they exploit what someone else has made. The publisher and the play producer are showmen too; but they exploit what is already made. The showmen of Hollywood control the making - and thereby degrade it. For the basic art of motion pictures is the screenplay; it is fundamental, without it there is nothing. Everything derives from the screenplay, and most of that which derives is an applied skill which, however adept, is artistically not in the same class with the creation of a screenplay.”

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Book:Later Novels & Other Writings
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