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Class Quotes

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Class Quotes

“We were poor. But my mom never accepted that. She worked hard to become a residential contractor - got her master's with honors at the University of New Orleans. I used to go to every class with her. Her father was my paternal figure.”

Hard Used Father Poor Class Figures Masters Mom Honor University My Mom Accepted New Orleans Contractor

Author:Frank Ocean

“I am of the international upper class, the Swedish petit bourgeoisie of Jewish extraction with poor language skills, a conveyor of a few expressions and faces, with some intonation that combines ancient human experience with timely coquetry.”

Humans Faces Language Poor Class Expression Skills International Ancient Human Experience Bourgeoisie Timely Upper Class Swedish Coquetry Extraction Intonation Language Skills

Author:Erland Josephson

“Inequality is bad for everyone, not just the middle class and the poor.”

Poor Class Middle Inequality Middle Class

Author:Robert Reich

“I am not an economic determinist. If I were, I would throw up my hands; I just would not bother. I think it's wrong to be an economic determinist. I think it's wrong to simply say, "Well, inevitably, if you're poor, you're going to get a lousy education; if you're lower-middle class, the cards are going to be stacked against you, and you'll probably never get anywhere".”

Ifs Thinking Wells Hands Poor Class Economic Middle Cards Bother Middle Class

Author:Robert Reich

“Cutting taxes is not bad. But if you cut taxes on the wealthy, which is what they wanted to do, you're not helping people who need better schools and better infrastructure and healthcare. You're basically robbing the middle class and the poor to provide tax cuts to the rich.”

People Ifs Needs Helping Wanted School Poor Class Rich Cutting Middle Taxes Middle Class Wealthy Healthcare Infrastructure Helping People Tax Cuts Robbing

Author:Robert Reich

“My father was a poor man, very poor in a British colonial possession where class and race were very important.”

Men Important Father Poor Race Class Possession British Poor Man

Author:Sidney Poitier

“Compromise is low class. I don't have anything against the poor, but being low class is the root of all evil”

Evil Poor Class Lows Roots Compromise

Author:Novala Takemoto

“Do not give alms promiscuously. Select the unworthy poor and make them happy. To give to the deserving is a duty, but to help the improvident, drinking class is clear generosity, so that the donor has a right to be warmed by a selfish pride and count on a most flattering obituary.”

Giving Helping Poor Class Clear Duty Pride Drinking Charity Selfish Generosity Select Unworthy Deserving Flattering Donors Alms Obituary

Book:The America of George Ade, 1866-1944: Fables, Short Stories, Essays

Source: The America of George Ade, 1866-1944: Fables, Short Stories, Essays

“BRAZILIFICATION:The widening gulf between the rich and the poor and the accompanying disappearance of the middle classes.”

Poor Class Rich Middle Middle Class Disappearance

Author:Douglas Coupland

“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

“I think this has been a class war waged by the rich against the poor, and I think that they won. And I think the poor are fighting back.”

Thinking Has Beens War Fighting Poor Class Rich Fighting Back

Author:Naomi Klein

“What rights have women? ... [they are] punished for breaking laws which they have no voice in making. All avenues to enterprise and honors are closed against them. If poor, they must drudge for a mere pittance if of the wealthy classes, they must be dressed dolls of fashion parlor puppets.”

Ifs Law Voice Poor Class Rights Fashion Honor Mere Enterprise Wealthy Womens Rights Avenues Dolls Puppets Parlor Breaking The Law

Author:Ernestine Rose

“For all the chatter that Britain has moved beyond class, recent studies have found that it determines the life chances of British people more today than at any point since the Second World War... A child born into a rich family in Britain will almost certainly live and die rich, while a child born into a poor family will almost certainly live and die poor.”

People World Children War Today Dies Found Born Chance Poor Class Study Rich Moved Determine British War Of The Worlds Britain Second World War Chatter Poor Family Rich Family

Author:Johann Hari

“By default, we have created a "system" of nursing-home care for the aged in which middle-class people pay exorbitant rates to for-profit nursing-home entrepreneurs - and then when private resources are consumed and the patient qualifies as a pauper, the nursing home begins billing Medicaid. This is precisely the antithesis of social citizenship; instead of the poor being accorded the dignity associated with the middle class, equality of treatment is achieved by making the middle class undergo pauperization.”

“There's a vast class - the poor, the underprivileged, the people least likely to vote - who are not represented any more.”

People Poor Class Vote Underprivileged

Author:Austin Mitchell

“While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.”

Ends Fighting Poor Class Break Struggle Rich Middle Taxes Extraordinary Middle Class Afghanistan Tax Breaks Mega

Author:Warren Buffett

“Nothing good can come from the Federal Reserve. It is the biggest taxer of them all. Diluting the value of the dollar by increasing its supply is a vicious, sinister tax on the poor and middle class.”

Values Poor Class Middle Taxes Dollars Middle Class Reserves Vicious Sinister Federal Reserve

Author:Ron Paul

“Being Black and poor is, I think, radically different from being anything else and poor. Poor, to most Blacks, is a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor; those who struggle are middle class.”

Thinking Mind Different States Black Poor Accepting Class Poverty Struggle Middle Middle Class State Of Mind

Book:Sacred cows-- and other edibles

Source: Sacred cows-- and other edibles

“There are more differences between poor people than between middle-class people.”

People Differences Poor Class Middle Middle Class Poor People

Author:Rita Mae Brown

“Sometime in the eighties, Americans had a new set of 'traditional values' installed. ... the poor and the middle class were shaken down, and their loose change funneled blithely upwards to the already overfed.”

Values Poor Class Rich Middle Down And Traditional Middle Class Eighty Rich And Poor Traditional Values Loose Change

Author:Barbara Ehrenreich

“a great deal of the wealth at the top is built on the low-wage labor of the poor. Take Wal-Mart, our largest private employer and premiere exploiter of the working class. ... You think it's a coincidence that this union-busting low-wage retail empire happens to have generated a $65 billion family fortune?”

Source: Going to Extremes: Notes from a Divided Nation

“To every class we have a school assign'd, Rules for all ranks, and food for every mind: Yet one there is, that small regard to rule Or study pays, and still is deem'd a school; That, where a deaf, poor, patient widow sits, And awes some thirty infants as she knits; Infants of humble, busy wives, who pay Some trifling price for freedom through the day. At this good matron's hut the children meet, Who thus becomes the mother of the street.”

Mind Children Stills School Mother Poor Pay Class Study Wife Streets Regard Patient Busy Humble Thirty Awe Infant Deaf Widows Trifling Huts

Book:The Poetical Works of George Crabbe: With a Life of the Author

Source: The Poetical Works of George Crabbe: With a Life of the Author

“In childbirth, as in other human endeavors, fashions start with the rich, are then adopted by the aspirant middle class with an assist from the ever-watchful media, and may or may not eventually filter down to the poor.”

Humans May Poor Class Rich Middle Media Fashion Middle Class Endeavor Adopted Social Change Childbirth Filters

Author:Jessica Mitford

“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.”

Writing May Has Beens Art Done Form Voice Poor Rooms Secret Class Poverty Materials Paper Majors Labor Plenty Prose Poetry Is Hospitals Working Class Subway Scrap Typewriters Surplus Pantry

Author:Audre Lorde

“If woman's sole responsibility is of the domestic type, one class will be crushed by it, and the other throw it off as a badge of poverty. The poor man's motto, 'Woman's work is never done,' leads inevitably to its antithesis - ladies' work is never begun.”

Ifs Men Done Poor Responsibility Class Poverty Type Sole Motto Crushed Poor Man Housework Badges Antithesis

Author:Antoinette Brown Blackwell

“They are the kind of people who are embarrassed by money, a dead middle-class giveaway. Poor people are not embarrassed by money and are contemptuous of those who are.”

People Kind Poor Money Class Middle Middle Class Embarrassed Poor People Contemptuous

Book:Civil Wars

Source: Civil Wars

“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.”

Want States Poor Class Blood Mass Victim Superiors Vampire Welfare Dependent Delusion Welfare State Euphoria Opiates

Author:Edward Britton

“I didn't say one negative word about poor people or about middle-class people or anything else. All I said was that the rich deserve our gratitude.”

People Said Poor Class Rich Middle Gratitude Deserve Negative Middle Class Poor People Negative Words

Author:Bernard Goldberg

“Were all the pleasures in the world, even pure air, made solely for the rich? I think it is immoral - it is horrible! - that one man may own twenty millions of money, and another has to commit a crime to keep the life in his miserable body. And if I were wealthy, I'd be a spendthrift! It's the spendthrifts who are the real friends of the poor. Some of their money filters through to the very lowest classes.”

“By... [selecting] the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the State of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use if not sought for and cultivated.”

Ifs States Use Poor Class Rich Talent Youth Genius

Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State

“In Caribbean there is no middle class: you're either rich or you're poor. And the ladder to success is not really a ladder, it's a chain; once you reach a certain level, you can't go back and you can only keep going forward.”

Certain Poor Levels Class Rich Middle Chains Middle Class Keep Going Ladders Caribbean

Author:Zoe Saldana

“The world is polarized. The middle class becomes smaller. The polarization makes the difference between rich and the poor big. This is true.”

World Bigs Differences Poor Class Rich Middle Middle Class Polarization

Author:Pope Francis

“We live in a world with serious class complexes. It is one thing to be a college student with loan debts and another thing to be just dirt poor for your entire life. The challenge is to come up with more complex understandings of where we are, more global awareness of what connects Americans with what is happening with suffering and oppressed people all around the world.”

People World Suffering Understanding Challenges Poor Class One Thing Awareness Students College Serious Happenings Complexes Come Up Debt Around The World Dirt Oppressed Loan College Students

Author:Bell Hooks

“I am from the working class. I am now what I was then. No amount of balsamic vinegar and Prada handbags could make me forget what it was like to be poor.”

Forget Poor Class Amount Working Class Vinegar Handbags Prada

Author:Sue Townsend

“What's the greatest enemy of Christianity to-day? Frozen meat. In the past only members of the upper classes were thoroughly sceptical, despairing, negative. Why? Among other reasons, because they were the only people who could afford to eat too much meat. Now there's cheap Canterbury lamb and Argentine chilled beef. Even the poor can afford to poison themselves into complete scepticism and despair.”

People Reason Past Poor Christianity Enemy Class Too Much Members Despair Negative Meat Poison Skepticism Frozen Lambs Beef Upper Class Scepticism Chilled Canterbury

Book:The collected works of Aldous Huxley

Source: The collected works of Aldous Huxley

“The most sublime courage I have ever witnessed has been among that class too poor to know they possessed it, and too humble for the world to discover it.”

Knows World Has Beens Poor Class Courage Humble Possessed Sublime

Author:George Bernard Shaw

“There are obvious places in which government can narrow the chasm between haves and have-nots. One is the public schools, which have been seen as the great leveler, the authentic melting pot. That, today, is nonsense. In his scathing study of the nation's public school system entitled "Savage Inequalities," Jonathan Kozol made manifest the truth: that we have a system that discriminates against the poor in everything from class size to curriculum.”

“Ensnared in his starvation, Chaplin-man is always just below political awareness. A strike is a catastrophe for him because it threatens a man truly blinded by his hunger; this man achieves an awareness of the working-class condition only when the poor man and the proletarian coincide under the gaze (and the blows) of the police.”

Men Political Poor Class Achieve Conditions Awareness Police Hunger Blow Strikes Working Class Catastrophe Starvation Poor Man Blinded Chaplin Political Awareness

Book:Mythologies

Source: Mythologies

“I don't want to know about the constitution of the rapist--I want to kill him! I don't care if he is white or black, if he is middle-class or poor, if his mother hung him from the clothesline by his balls: I only want to kill him! Any woman who has been raped will agree.”

Ifs Knows Want Has Beens Care Mother Black White Poor Class Middle Balls Constitution Agree Don't Care I Don't Care Middle Class Hung Clotheslines

Author:Diamanda Galas

“Until the Second World War, it was unthinkable for a married woman of the working or middle class to disgrace her husband by working after marriage, because her employment indicated that he was a poor provider”

World War Women Work Poor Class Middle Husband Married Employment War Of The Worlds Middle Class World War I Disgrace Second World War Unthinkable Providers Married Women

Author:Sandra Scarr

“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.”

“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.”

“If we wanted a program to help the majority of the population, we'd offer loan guarantees to help poor people get access to reliable cars so that they could have a better shot at getting - and keeping - a well-paying job...A small amount of capital could make a much bigger difference in their lives than extra student loan relief for middle-class college kids would.”

“Get a millionaire mentor. Most of us were brought up middle class or poor and then hold ourselves to the limits and ideas of that group. I have been studying millionaires to duplicate what they did. Get your own personal millionaire mentor and study them. Most rich people are extremely generous with their knowledge and their resources.”

People Has Beens Ideas Poor Class Study Rich Groups Middle Limits Resources Generous Middle Class Mentor Millionaire Rich People Duplicate

Author:Grant Cardone

“What used to be racial segregation now mirrors itself in class segregation, this great sorting (has) taken place. It creates its own politics. There are some communities where not only do I not know poor people, I don't even know people who have trouble paying the bills at the end of the month. I just don't know those people. And so there's less sense of investment in those children.”

People Knows Children Ends Used Politics Community Poor Class Taken Trouble Months Mirrors Bills Investment Used To Be Poor People Segregation Sorting Racial Segregation

Author:Barack Obama

“But colonialism in its harshest forms is not only the exploitation of new nations by old, of dark skins by light, or the subjugation of the poor by the rich. My Nation was once a colony, and we know what colonialism means; the exploitation and subjugation of the weak by the powerful, of the many by the few, of the governed who have given no consent to be governed, whatever their continent, their class, their color.”

Knows Mean Light Form Given Nations Dark Poor Powerful Class Rich Color Weak Skins Continents Colonialism Exploitation Consent Colony Subjugation Dark Skin

Author:John F. Kennedy

“Poor communities, frequently communities of color but not exclusively, suffer disproportionately. If you look at where our industrialized facilities tend to be located, they're not in the upper middle class neighborhoods.”

Ifs Looks Suffering Community Poor Class Middle Color Environmental Middle Class Neighborhood Pollution Facility Upper Middle Class

Author:Carol Browner

“But for poor black people and working-class black people, it is a much more difficult way to go. The over-incarceration of black people is just intolerable. When you look at the disparity in terms of education and access to fair schooling, it is horrible. If this would happen to white people in this country, it would not be tolerated.”

People Ifs Way Looks Country Happens Difficult Black Term White Poor Class Fairs Access Horrible Black People Working Class Schooling Disparity Incarceration

Author:Michael Eric Dyson

“Too often, systems of oppression turn those who are the targets of the oppression against one another. It's happened in the USA between white working class and poor folks on the one hand, and people of color on the other.”

People Hands Turns White Poor Class Happened Color Folks Oppression Usa Target Working Class

Author:Tim Tebow

“When I was growing up, you were supposed to marry and therefore didn't plan ahead. Planning ahead is one of the few reliable measures of class in the sense that rich people plan for generations forward and poor people plan for Saturday night, and by that measure, women have been lower class. We were less likely to plan ahead because we're more likely to think that who we marry and our children are going to dictate our plans.”