Quotes on Class

When St. Teresa of Avila says, 'Our life in this world is like a night in a second class hotel' I agree with her absolutely; and I think it's almost insulting to God and man to suggest that trivial events should give rise to deep concern on his part.

There are two great classes of men: the people and the scholars, the men of science. For the former, nothing exists but that which directly leads to action. It is for the latter to see beyond. They are the free artists who create the future and its history, the conscious architects of the world.

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.

It is one of history's ironies that Communism, advertised as a classless society, tended to breed a privileged class of feudal proportions.

Occasionally, the whole class struggle may be summed up in the struggle for one word against another word. Certain words struggle amongst themselves as enemies. Other words are the site of an ambiguity: the stake in a decisive but undecided battle

The French need a thrashing. If the Prussians win, the centralization of state power will be useful for the centralization of the German working class. German predominance would also transfer the center of gravity of the workers' movement in Western Europe from France to Germany, and one has only to compare the movement in the two countries from 1866 until now to see that the German working class is superior to the French both theoretically and organizationally.

The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose - especially their lives.

The Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.

Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter, by peaceful or revolutionary means, into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.

The American elite is almost beyond redemption. . . . Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush--sophistry washed down with Chardonnay. The ordinary citizens, thank goodness, still adhere to absolutes.... It is they who have saved the republic from creeping degradation while their 'betters' were derelict.

The great thing about the arts, and especially popular music, is that it really does cut across genres and races and classes.

I’m very worried about the depiction of women on the screen. It’s gotten worse than ever and it’s related to their being either high- or low-class concubines, and the only question is when or where they will go to bed, with whom, and how many. There’s nothing to do with the dreams of women, or of woman as the dream, nothing to do with the quirky part of her, the wonder of her.

Ideas are easy. I've never met a single person who didn't think they had a world class idea. The hard part is making it a business.

It is no longer simply the merchant prince, or the aristocratic monopoly, or even the employing class, that is exploiting the world: it is the nation, a new democratic nation composed of united capital and labor.

You see, dancers are quite mature people because they start performing so early. They become professionals when they start to take everyday classes.

There are two fools in this world. One is the millionaire who thinks that by hoarding money he can somehow accumulate real power, and the other is the penniless reformer who thinks that if only he can take the money from one class and give it to another, all the world's ills will be cured.

There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. The man who understands those principles best will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome.

If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.

There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the neurotic classes.

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