31 Quotes About Social-classes

The most impoverished peasant can be delighted by the opening of the first spring flower, and the most wealthy aristocrat can curse the day he was born because of some petty offense to his sensibilities. She is a very wise woman. To achieve serenity we have to view life not as it is measured by the world around us but as we ourselves measure it. We must accept that the scales are not at all equal.

Man is divided into two categories; men and supermen. Men are taught that all men are equal. Supermen think that they are the only men.

Liberty is an affair of laws and institutions which bring rights and duties into equilibrium. It is not at all an affair of selecting the proper class to rule.

For every first-class dog that entered the lifeboats, twenty-nine steerage women and nineteen children died. Emily Badman and Kathy Gilnagh seemed destined to be counted among the lost, having found themselves penned in behind a drawn gate, deep within the stern. An armed, junior officer stood on the other side. "Following orders," he insisted. "It's not time for you to go up.

— Livet är värt precis så mycket, som vi vet med oss själva, att vi kan göra av värde i det, inte vad andra möjligen förmår uppskatta. Känslan av gemensamhet ligger kanske inte så väl till för oss människor, ifall vi inte någon gång är sjuka eller i nöd, men vi måste kunna lita på varann, uppåt som nedåt, även om uppåt och nedåt nog kommer att finnas i alla fall ...” (Sid. 421)

Class analysis can thus function not simply as part of scientific theory of interests and conflicts, but of an emancipatory theory of alternatives and social justice as well. Even if socialism is off the historical agenda, the idea of countering the exploitative logic of capitalism is not.

We cannot have a just society that applies the principle of accountability to the powerless in the principle of forgiveness to the powerful.

La Société ne fait-elle pas de l'homme, suivant les milieux où son action se déploie, autant d'hommes différents qu'il y a de variétés en zoologie ? [...] Il a donc existé, il existera donc de tout temps des Espèces Sociales comme il y a des Espèces Zoologiques.

Thus, for an adequate interpretation of the differences found between the classes or within the same class as regards their relation to the various legitimate arts, painting, music, theatre, literature etc., one would have to analyse fully the social uses, legitimate or illegitimate, to which each of the arts, genres, works or institutions considered lends itself. For example, nothing more clearly affirms one's 'class', nothing more infallibly classifies, than tastes in music.