The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.
—Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian Revolutionary Leader
The distinctions separating the social classes are false; in the last analysis they rest on force.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
The most perfect political community must be amongst those who are in the middle rank, and those states are best instituted wherein these are a larger and more respectable part, if possible, than both the other; or, if that cannot be, at least than either of them separate.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
English history is aristocracy with the doors open. Who has courage and faculty, let him come in.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
No matter her past, when a chambermaid marries a lord she becomes a lady.
—Latin Proverb
People of quality know everything without ever having learned anything.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
All the world over, I will back the masses against the classes.
—William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98) English Liberal Statesman, Prime Minister
Snobs talk as if they had begotten their own ancestors.
—Herbert Agar (1897–1980) American Journalist, Historian, Poet, Critic
Sophistication might be described as the ability to cope gracefully with a situation involving the presence of a formidable menace to one’s poise and prestige (such as the butler, or the man under the bed—but never the husband).
—James Thurber
What I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German-born Swiss Novelist, Poet
Real good breeding, as the people have it here, is one of the finest things now going in the world. The careful avoidance of all discussion, the swift hopping from topic to topic, does not agree with me; but the graceful style they do it with is beyond that of minuets!
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
What men prize most is a privilege, even if it be that of chief mourner at a funeral.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Each class of society has its own requirements; but it may be said that every class teaches the one immediately below it; and if the highest class be ignorant, uneducated, loving display, luxuriousness, and idle, the same spirit will prevail in humbler life.
—Unknown
It is to the middle-class we must look for the safety of England.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) English Novelist
The traveler to the United States will do well to prepare himself for the class-consciousness of the natives. This differs from the already familiar English version in being more extreme and based more firmly on the conviction that the class to which the speaker belongs is inherently superior to all others.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist
Between richer and poorer classes in a free country a mutually respecting antagonism is much healthier than pity on the one hand and dependence on the other, as is, perhaps, the next best thing to fraternal feeling.
—Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American Sociologist
The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid. There is no big man who has not felt small. Some men never feel small; but these are the few men who are.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
This miserable state is borne by the wretched souls of those who lived without disgrace and without praise.
—Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Italian Poet, Philosopher
There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talent.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Rank and riches are chains of gold, but still chains.
—Giovanni Ruffini (1807–81) Italian Writer, Patriot
Upper classes are a nation’s past; the middle class is its future.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division ;and from the antagonism between poor and rich means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts.
—Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) Soviet Leader
Throughout recorded time… there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other. The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
All history has been a history of class struggles between dominated classes at various stages of social development.
—Friedrich Engels (1820–95) German Socialist Political Philosopher
If experience has established any one thing in this world, it has established this: that it is well for any great class and description of men in society to be able to say for itself what it wants, and not to have other classes, the so-called educated and intelligent classes, acting for it as its proctors, and supposed to understand its wants and to provide for them. A class of men may often itself not either fully understand its wants, or adequately express them; but it has a nearer interest and a more sure diligence in the matter than any of its proctors, and therefore a better chance of success.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chinese Statesman
An intelligent class can scarce ever be, as a class, vicious, and never, as a class, indolent. The excited mental activity operates as a counterpoise to the stimulus of sense and appetite.
—Edward Everett (1794–1865) American Politician, Scholar
Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
At a round table there is no dispute about place.
—Italian Proverb
We of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
I weigh the man, not his title; ’tis not the king’s stamp can make the metal better.
—William Wycherley (c.1640–1716) English Dramatist
The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder’s moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
The aristocracy of feudal parchment has passed away with a mighty rushing, and now, by a natural course, we arrive at aristocracy of the money-bag.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It’s the sure-footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life.
—Ask Ann Landers (1918–2002) American Advice Columnist
The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
—Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Aristocrats: Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts-guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
Let the others have the charisma. I’ve got the class.
—George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American Republican Statesman, 41st President
The ignorant classes are the dangerous classes.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Aristocracy: What is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone.
—John Ciardi (1916–86) American Poet, Teacher, Etymologist, Translator
Fit yourself for the best society, and then, never enter it.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
The true policy of a government is to make use a aristocracy, but under the forms and in the spirit of democracy.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
I perceive that God is no respecter of persons.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Men seldom rise from low condition to high rank without employing either force or fraud, unless that rank should be attained either by gift or inheritance.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Florentine Political Philosopher
Historically and politically, the petit-bourgeois is the key to the century. The bourgeois and proletariat classes have become abstractions: the petite-bourgeoisie, in contrast, is everywhere, you can see it everywhere, even in the areas of the bourgeois and the proletariat, what’s left of them.
—Roland Barthes (1915–80) French Writer, Critic, Teacher