Famous quotes containing the word class:
“You see, after the war—and don’t forget it lasted a hundred years—thousands of us went from door to door, asking for honest work, and we were whipped for begging. The ruling class didn’t say, “Work or starve.” They said “Starve, for you shall not work.””
—Sonya Levien (1895–1960)
“One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)
“A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of gov’t as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by gov’t. Somewhere in between and in gradations is the group that has the sense that gov’t exists for it, and shapes its consciousness accordingly.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)