Class quotes
4.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside class — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"A central tenet of modern feminist thought has been the assertion that "all women are oppressed." This assertion implies that women share a common lot, that factors like class, race, religion, sexual preference, etc. do not create a diversity of experience that determines the extent to which sexism will be an oppressive force in the lives of individual women."
"What's so amazing about this historical moment is that it is bringing class to the fore and we have to think about the nature of work and hierarchy."
"The fact is that it was bourgeois white feminism that I was reacting against when I stood in my first women's studies classes and said, "Black women have always worked.""
"Somehow, stars have a lot of class if they are done right; they never have a shelf life."
"There's a false narrative that only the political class has the wisdom and the ability to be commander-in- chief. But if you go back and you study the design of our country, it was really designed for the citizen statesman."
"Rich widows are the only secondhand goods that sell at first-class prices."
"I went to a middle-class school, but my background is working class. I got the best of both worlds, I saw both classes, so I have a pretty fair idea of how people live and why they do it."
"My mother was a housewife. Both from - well, my father was from a farming family, agricultural family in the north of England. And my mother came from a very working class."
"What teachers and the administration in that era never seemed to see was that the mental work of what they called daydreaming often required more effort and concentration than it would have taken simply to listen in class. Laziness is not the issue. It is just not the work dictated by the administration."
"I did my BA in English lit, and hated the restriction - I'd always read more in translation than not; coming from a working-class background, what I knew of as British literature - the writers who made big prize lists and/or were stocked in WH Smith, Doncaster's only bookshop until I was 17 - seemed incredibly, alienatingly middle-class. Then in 2009, just after the financial crash, I graduated with no more specific skill than 'can analyse a bit of poetry'."
"There is a class system in acting just like in anything else. Black females fall in a category below black male actors."
"I fit into the quirky, character class type of actor."
"You've got more potential than you could use in a thousand lifetimes, I see world class potential in you? But one of the secrets, is you're as good as the best ? you don't have to be better than the rest."
"Behind the contained and orderly lives we lead as members of the respectable middle class there's a terrible human capacity that may one day overwhelm any of us."
"The future and the hope for the middle class church lies in the renewal of its lifeblood, which is only possible if the church succeeds in winning the working class."
"If Helen of Troy could have been seen eating peppermints out of a paper bag, it is highly probable that her admirers would have been an entirely different class.It is the thing you are found doing while the horde looks on that you shall be loved for - or ignored."
"The books people are writing today, they're too long. You get a little bit of plot, and then pages and pages of Creative Writing. They teach classes in how to do this. They should teach classes in how to stop!"
"[French intellectuals] could never address themselves to the working classes. They don't know what it means, and that gives them a bad conscience about it. [Albert] Camus has a greater proximity to those in poverty."
"I went to Julliard and we did a lot of mask work there, and I remember thinking in class, 'When am I ever going to use this?"
"People's wants are not fixed; they generally want what others in their chosen comparison class appear to be enjoying and what advertising presents to them as attainable for them and as bringing happiness."
