Class quotes
4.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside class — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"It's not white versus black any more, it's haves versus have-nots. Unless the black middle-classes unite to promote the interests of the black underclass, tension between them is inevitable. What we, the black middle class have to do, is think of a strategy to avert that."
"In fact, the class divide in the black community is now seen by some as a permanent aspect of our existence."
"Since the day Martin Luther King was killed, the black middle classes have almost quadrupled, but the percentage of black children living on or below the poverty line is almost the same."
"Very few Black people ever embraced back to Africa movements, and very few actually, a tiny number actually went back to Africa. They said, "We are going to make America live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States." They produced one of the world's great cultures; they produced individuals who were just as brilliant and made contributions to the world civilization. In fact, they produced a world-class civilization, the African American civilization, in music, in dance, in oratory, in religion, in writing."
"I did in fact take a couple of classes at my local college here in NYC. But I did it unwillingly and without enthusiasm. That is until a protest broke out in the streets around campus against rising tuition costs."
"I really wasn't a class clown."
"It is quite too common a practice, both in readers and the more superficial class of critics, to judge a book by what it is not, a matter much easier to determine than what it is."
"I'm of the opinion that the Democrats have the ideas I agree with more often than not. Reenergizing the middle class and giving people a break."
"As the middle class is predated upon with an ever greater malicious intensity, their children stand to lose more and harder than their parents ever did."
"There's nothing funny about, 'Yeah, I took a First Class plane ticket and I went to some designer beach and made out with a Laotian slave girl.' Who cares?"
"Every master has but one disciple, and that one becomes unfaithful to him, for he too is destined for master-ship."
"The Fed's low-interest policy not only encourages spending and borrowing, it discourages the one thing that best helps people raise themselves into higher economic classes — saving."
"The master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in affluent multitude from the mass of the nations, and from the mass of the nation only-not from its privileged classes."
"A strong, educated middle class is what made America the greatest country in the world."
"I took piano and drum lessons when I was young, and took a lot of choir classes in high school. Beyond that I just play by ear and learn as I go."
"Everyone should get more involved in exercising, not just for the health benefits, but for the social side too. There are so many different aspects in your life where sport can help. Even if you only go to a class at a local pool, you'll feel the benefits."
"I was not the one to invent lies: they were created in a society divided by class and each of us inherited lies when we were born. It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lies: it is by eradicating class by any means necessary."
"I take from people all the time. I didn't ever go to acting classes or anything. You can just watch people."
"I speak Mandarin and can read and write a little. I took a few classes at Harvard to get better in my reading and writing skills."
"This being busied with thoughts of immortality is for the noble classes and especially for women with nothing to do. A solid person, though, someone who already intends to be something worthy here, and who therefore has to strive daily, has to struggle and work, gives the world to come a rest."
