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Class Quotes

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Class Quotes

“A "snapshot" feature in USA Today listed the five greatest concerns parents and teachers had about children in the '50s: talking out of turn, chewing gum in class, doing homework, stepping out of line, cleaning their rooms. Then it listed the five top concerns of parents today: drug addiction, teenage pregnancy, suicide and homicide, gang violence, anorexia and bulimia. We can also add AIDS, poverty, and homelessness. . . . Between my own childhood and the advent of my motherhood--one short generation--the culture had gone completely mad.”

“The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seemsas absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.”

Writing War Ends Mother Courses Given Class Imagine Months Birth Skills Prepared Complexes Notion Nine Absurd Acquire Composition Naive Nine Months

Author:Mary Blakely

“Who keeps the tavern and serves up the drinks? The peasant. Who squanders and drinks up money belonging to the peasant commune, the school, the church? The peasant. Who would steal from his neighbor, commit arson, and falsely denounce another for a bottle of vodka? The peasant.”

Country School Church Class Drink Drinking Neighbor Stealing Commit Belonging Bottles Peasants Vodka Communes Country Life Taverns Arson

Author:Anton Chekhov

“The bell of public opinion is today making the Morgan-Rockefeller-Vanderbilt class jump. Nor are the strongest of our corporations immune. The railroads have had to jump pretty lively, and certain gigantic industrial combinations are also being put through their paces.”

Today Certain Opinion Class Combination Corporations Strongest Pace Bells Public Opinion Immune Lively Railroads Vanderbilt

Author:B. C. Forbes

“After visiting several of America's most fashionable playgrounds, I have reached the conclusion that men who work hard enjoy life most. The men at such places can be divided into two classes, first, busy men of affairs ... and, second, rich loafers. I was impressed by the obvious enjoyment corporation heads and other important executives were deriving from their vacation activities.... The idle rich fellows, on the other hand, although indulging in exactly the same activities, palpably were bored.”

“Managing the other fellow's business is a fascinating game. Trade unionists all over the country have pronounced ideas for the reform of Wall Street banks; and Wall Street bankers are not far behind in giving plans for the tremendous improvement of trade union policies. Wholesalers have schemes for improving the retailer; the retailer knows just what is wrong in the conduct of wholesale business-and we might go through a long list.... Yet for some reason the classes that ought to be helped keep on stubbornly clinging to their own method of running their affairs.”

“Which class is happiest, the rich, the middle class or the poor? A very successful executive of a large organization touches upon this vital subject in a long letter to all his salesmen. He uses as his text a passage from Robinson Crusoe which included this: ""My Father bid me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the middle station had the fewest disasters, and were not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind.”

“Prep school, public school, university: these now tedious influences standardize English autobiography, giving the educated Englishman the sad if fascinating appearance of a stuffed bird of sly and beady eye in some old seaside museum. The fixation on school has become a class trait. It manifests itself as a mixture of incurious piety and parlour game.”

Ifs Giving Eye School Games Class Influence Bird University Appearance Educated Fascinating Museums Traits Autobiography Mixtures Public School Englishmen Piety Tedious Sly Preps Fixation

Author:V. S. Pritchett

“The French system of conscription brings together a fair sample of all classes; ours is composed of the scum of the earth - the mere scum of the earth. It is only wonderful that we should be able to make so much out of them afterwards.”

Should Able Earth Together Class Wonderful Fairs Mere Sample Scum Conscription Scum Of The Earth

Author:Duke of Wellington

“I have observed that not the man who hopes when others despair, but the man who despairs when others hope, is admired by a large class of persons as a sage.”

Men Persons Class He Man Despair Investing Sage

Book:Autobiography

Source: Autobiography

“You can take lessons to become almost anything: flying lessons, piano lessons, skydiving lessons, acting lessons, race car driving lessons, singing lessons. But there's no class for comedy. You have to be born with it. God has to give you this gift.”

Giving Born Acting Race Class Comedy Car Lessons Singing Driving Flying Piano Race Car Piano Lesson Skydiving Car Driving

Author:Steve Harvey

“Real unity tolerates dissent and rejoices in variety of outlook and tradition, recognizes that it is man's destiny to unite and not divide, and understands that creating proletariats and scapegoats and second-class citizens is a mean and contemptible activity.”

Men Mean Real Class Destiny Citizens Activity Creating Tradition Unity Variety Divides Rejoice Tolerate Outlook Dissent Proletariat Scapegoat Second Class Citizens

Book:Northrop Frye on Canada

Source: Northrop Frye on Canada

“I'm a comedian first. I've learned how to act. I just draw on life experiences and that's how I've learned. I didn't take classes or anything. I don't need no classroom.”

Needs Firsts Class Draws Comedian I've Learned Classroom Life Experience

Author:Steve Harvey

“More important than anything else is for Americans to wise up to class warfare demagoguery and reject the politics of envy.”

Important Politics Class Wise Envy Rejects Warfare Class Warfare Demagoguery

Author:Walter E. Williams

“Is it not clear that to give to such women as desire it and can devote themselves to literary and scientific pursuits all the advantages enjoyed by men of the same class will lessen essentially the number of thoughtless, idle, vain and frivolous women and thus secure the [sic] society the services of those who now hang as dead weight?”

Men Giving Desire Numbers Class Clear Advantage Weight Pursuit Secure Enjoyed Vain Idle Frivolous

Book:The Feminist Thought of Sarah Grimké

Source: The Feminist Thought of Sarah Grimké

“Why, since man and woman were created for each other, had He made their desires so dissimilar? Why should one class of women be able to dwell in luxurious seclusion from the trials of life, while another class performed their loathsome tasks? Surely His wisdom had not decreed that one set of women should live in degradation and in the end should perish that others might live in security, preserve their frappeed chastity, and in the end be saved.”

Men Should Made Ends Might Able Desire Class Security Men And Women Tasks Saved Trials Preserves Degradation Chastity Luxurious Seclusion

Author:Madeleine Albright

“Never forget, son, when you represent Texas, always go first class.”

Firsts Forget Class Son Never Forget Texas First Class

Book:Texas: A Novel

Source: Texas: A Novel

“All the different classes of beings which taken together make up the universe are, in the ideas of God who knows distinctly their essential gradations, only so many ordinates of a single curve so closely united that it would be impossible to place others between any two of them, since that would imply disorder and imperfection. Thus men are linked with the animals, these with the plants and these with the fossils which in turn merge with those bodies which our senses and our imagination represent to us as absolutely inanimate.”

Knows Men Two Ideas Different Body Would Be Together Turns Universe Imagination Animal United Class Taken Impossible Essentials Plant Senses Disorder Imperfection Linked Curves Fossils

Author:Gottfried Leibniz

“The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the discharge of a moral obligation.”

Law Political Race Liberty Moral Class Ideals Obligation Realization Reign Abolish Discharge Moral Obligation

Author:Lord Acton

“A certain class of novels may with propriety be called fables.”

May Certain Class Novel Fables Propriety

Author:Richard Whately

“As I holed up in the City of Angels, I was also aware of a comforting feeling of anonymity. In the world's biggest third-class city I could pass unnoticed. I spoke the language. I was familiar with the currency. I could drink the water. I could almost breathe the air, late April air, compounded of interesting hydrocarbons.”

“In order to be a world-class expert in anything, be it audiology, drama, music, art, gymnastics, whatever, one needs to have a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice. Unfortunately, it doesn't mean that if you put in 10,000 hours that you will become an expert, but there aren't any cases where someone has achieved world-class mastery without it! So the time spent at the activity is indeed the most important and influential factor.”

Ifs World Needs Mean Art Important Order Hours Class Practice Cases Drama Activity Factors Experts Mastery Minimum Influential Gymnastics Time Spent World Class

Author:Daniel Levitin

“Zombies are the real lower-class citizens of the monster world and that's why l like them.”

World Real Class Citizens Monsters Zombie Lower Class

Author:George A. Romero

“There is, perhaps, one universal truth about all forms of human cognition: the ability to deal with knowledge is hugely exceeded by the potential knowledge contained in man's environment. To cope with this diversity, man's perception, his memory, and his thought processes early become governed by strategies for protecting his limited capacities from the confusion of overloading. We tend to perceive things schematically, for example, rather than in detail, or we represent a class of diverse things by some sort of averaged "typical instance.”

Source: On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand

“I read, with a kind of hopeless envy, histories and legends of people of our craft who "do not write for money." It must be a pleasant experience to be able to cultivate so delicate a class of motives for the privilege of doing one's best to express one's thoughts to people who care for them. Personally, I have yet to breathe the ether of such a transcendent sphere. I am proud to say that I have always been a working woman, and always had to be.”

People Writing Kind Care Able Class Proud Privilege Breathe Envy Crafts Motive Pleasant Hopeless Legends Spheres Delicate Who Cares Transcendent Working Women

Author:Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

“A prejudice may be an unreasoned judgment, he [Hibben] pointed out, but an unreasoned judgment is not necessarily an illogical judgment. ... First, there are those judgments whose verification has simply dropped out of memory. ... The second type of unreasoned judgments we hold is the opinions we adopt from others ... The third class of judgments in Professor Hibben's list comprises those which have subconscious origin. The material that furnishes their support does not reach the focal point of consciousness, but psychology insists upon its existence.”

“The ability to secure an independent livelihood and honorable employ suited to her education and capacities is the only true foundation of the social elevation of woman, even in the very highest classes of society. While she continues to be educated only to be somebody's wife, and is left without any aim in life till that somebody either in love, or in pity, or in selfish regard at last grants her the opportunity, she can never be truly independent.”

Source: The true remedy for the wrongs of woman: with a history of an enterprise having that for its object

“The lady is proverbial for her skill in eluding definition ... she may be described merely as the female of the favored social class.”

May Social Class Skills Female Definitions Social Class Proverbial

Author:Emily James Smith Putnam

“. . . if I had been a man, self-respect, family pressure and the public opinion of my class would have pushed me into a money-making profession; as a mere woman I could carve out a career of disinterested research.”

Ifs Men Self Opinion Class Careers Research Pressure Mere Profession Making Money Self Respect Dishes Public Opinion Disinterested

Book:My Apprenticeship

Source: My Apprenticeship

“Of all the hokum with which this country [America] is riddled, the most odd is the common notion that it is free of class distinctions.”

Country America Common Class Notion Odd Distinction Class Distinction

Book:A Writer's Notebook

Source: A Writer's Notebook

“In the highest class of God's school of suffering we learn not resignation nor patience, but rejoicing in tribulation.”

School Suffering Class Highest Rejoice Resignation Tribulation

Author:John H. Vincent

“The teacher should use illustrations for the better teaching of the lesson, and never to fill up time, to amuse the class, or to display his own genius.”

Should Use Class Teacher Teaching Genius Lessons Display Illustration

Author:John H. Vincent

“The day must come when the nation's whole scale of living must be reduced. If that day comes,Parliament must lay the burden equally on all classes.”

Ifs Whole Nations Class Lays Burden Scales Parliament

Author:Lord Randolph Churchill

“When it came to formal classes, I was a slacker. But I've always been a diligent autodidact and can teach myself virtually any subject if I have a serious interest in it.”

Ifs Interest Class Teach Subjects Serious Formal Diligent Slacker

Author:Dean Koontz

“Of the cosmic Gods some make the world be, others animate it, others harmonize it, consisting as it does of different elements; the fourth class keep it when harmonized.”

World Doe Different Class Elements Cosmic Fourth

Author:Sallust

“There is no denying that there are 'royal roads' through existence for the upper classes; for them, at least, the highways are macadamized, swept, and watered.”

Wealth Existence Class Royal Highways Upper Class

Book:The Works of L.E. Landon in Two Volumes

Source: The Works of L.E. Landon in Two Volumes

“there can be neither politically nor morally a good which is not universal ... we cannot reform for a time or for a class, but for all and for the whole, and our very interests will draw us together in one wide bond of sympathy.”

Whole Together Interest Class Draws Universal Equality Wide Reform

Book:The Complete Works of L. E. Landon: Containing Romance and Reality, Francesca Carrara, Traits and Trials of Early Life, Ethel Church, the Book of Beauty, Improvisatrice, the Troubadour, Venetian Bracelet, Golden Violet, Vow of the Peacock, Easter Gift, &c., &c

Source: The Complete Works of L. E. Landon: Containing Romance and Reality, Francesca Carrara, Traits and Trials of Early Life, Ethel Church, the Book of Beauty, Improvisatrice, the Troubadour, Venetian Bracelet, Golden Violet, Vow of the Peacock, Easter Gift, &c., &c

“Nothing more strongly marks the insufficiency of luxuries than the ease with which people grow accustomed to them; they are rather known by their want than by their presence. The word 'blasé' has been coined expressly for the use of the upper classes.”

People Want Has Beens Use Grows Known Class Mark Luxury Ease Accustomed Upper Class Insufficiency

Book:The Works of L. E. Landon: In Two Volumes

Source: The Works of L. E. Landon: In Two Volumes

“You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him. You send him to the Latin class, but much of histuition comes, on his way to school, from the shop- windows.”

Way Children School Education Class Window Our Children Your Children Shops Latin Educate Shop Windows

Book:The Conduct of Life

Source: The Conduct of Life

“The best hopes of any community rest upon that class of its gifted young men who are not encumbered with large possessions.... I now speak of extensive scholarship and ripe culture in science and art.... It is not large possessions, it is large expectations, or rather large hopes, that stimulate the ambition of the young.”

Men Art Young Culture Speak Community Class Ambition Expectations Possession Young Man Gifted Scholarship Ripe Art And Science Hoping For The Best

Author:Rutherford B. Hayes

“Last evening attended Croghan Lodge International Order of Odd Fellows. Election of officers. Chosen Noble Grand. These social organizations have a number of good results. All who attend are educated in self-government. This in a marked way. They bind society together. The well-to-do and the poor should be brought together as much as possible. The separation into classes--castes--is our danger. It is the danger of all civilizations.”

“No capitalists after any war were ever so well paid for money loaned to the nation that carried it on. No class of money-makers ever gained such prosperity by any other war, as our War for the Union brought to the money-getters of America. All this was due in great measure to the rank and file of the Union army. Now let no rich man haggle with a needy veteran of that war about his right to a pension!”

Men Wells War America Nations Class Rich Army Paid Unions Prosperity Dues Makers Capitalist Veteran Files Needy Rich Man Pension Money Maker

Author:Rutherford B. Hayes

“Number is divided into even and odd. Even number is divided into the following: evenly even, evenly uneven, and unevenly uneven. Odd number is divided into the following: prime and incomposite, composite, and a third intermediate class (mediocris) which in a certain way is prime and incomposite but in another way secondary and composite.”

Way Certain Numbers Class Thirds Following Odd Prime Divided Another Way Composites Seville Odd Numbers

Author:Isidore of Seville

“For those parents from lower-class and minority communities[who] have had minimal experience in negotiating dominant, external institutions or have had negative and hostile contact with social service agencies, their initial approaches to the school are often overwhelming and difficult. Not only does the school feel like an alien environment with incomprehensible norms and structures, but the families often do not feel entitled to make demands or force disagreements.”

“Success gives the character of honesty to some classes of wickedness.”

Giving Character Class Honesty Wickedness

Author:Seneca the Younger

“I fired the ball for the purpose of giving those dudes to understand upon what ground I stood, believing that those of this class who believe that there are no women capable of taking care of themselves when young, would inform their friends that they might be in danger of their lives if they approached me.”

Ifs Giving Believe Might Care Young Purpose Women Class Danger Capable Balls Assertiveness

Author:Mary Edwards Walker

“At their core, misogyny and racism are very similar modes of thinking. Both diminish and disrespect a class of people based on a trait that is wholly distinct from their ideas, their carriage and their conduct.”

People Thinking Ideas Class Racism Core Bigotry Traits Misogyny Diminish Disrespect Carriages

Author:Dessa Darling

“Celebrate my death for the good times I've had, For the work that I've done and the friends that I've made. Celebrate my death, of whom it could be said, "She was a working class woman, and a red."”

Made Said Done Class Red Celebrate Good Times Dishes Working Class

Author:Malvina Reynolds

“All fear of 'offensive' speech is bourgeois and reactionary. Historically, profane or bawdy language was common in both the upper and the lower classes, who lived together in rural areas amid the untidy facts of nature. Notions of propriety and decorum come to the fore in urbanized periods ruled by an expanding middle class, which is obsessed with cleanliness, respectability, and conformism.”

“The common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely, and can be managed only by a specialised class.”

Interest Common Opinion Class Internet Free Speech Public Opinion Elude Common Interests

Book:Public Opinion

Source: Public Opinion