distinction of social class Quotes

″‘In Mexico, I was a second-class citizen. I stood on the other side of the river, remember? And I would have stayed that way my entire life. At least here, I have a chance, however small, to become more than I was. You, obviously, can never understand this because you have never lived without hope.‘”

“If I were to inquire what passion is most natural to men who are stimulated and circumscribed by the obscurity of their birth or the mediocrity of their fortune, I could discover none more peculiarly appropriate to their condition than this love of physical prosperity. The passion for physical comforts is essentially a passion of the middle classes: with those classes it grows and spreads, with them it preponderates.”

“Sociologists call the process of the melting pot “social mobility.” One of America’s characteristics has always been the lack of a rigid class structure. It has traditionally been possible for people to move up the social and economic scale.”

“How sweet to be able to disdain, when most of us are glad to say, ‘Thank you!’ I seem to hear it. ‘No sir- I’m your better.‘”

“And you must be Miss Granger. Yes, Draco’s told me all about you. And your parents. Muggles, aren’t they? Let me see. Red hair...vacant expressions...tatty second hand book...you must be the Weasleys.”

″‘Little one,’ he said, in a low voice, ‘do not worry – it will not matter to us. We will pay them all somehow. I will work harder.’ That was always what Jurgis said. Ona had grown used to it as the solution of all difficulties – ‘I will work harder!’ He had said that in Lithuania when one official had taken his passport from him, and another had arrested him for being without it, and the two had divided a third of his belongings. He had said it again in New York, when the smooth-spoken agent had taken them in hand and made them pay such high prices, and almost prevented their leaving his place, in spite of their paying. Now he said it a third time, and Ona drew a deep breath; it was so wonderful to have a husband, just like a grown woman – and a husband who could solve all problems, and who was so big and strong!”

“Better luck than all this could hardly have been hoped for; there was only one of them left to seek a place. Jurgis was determined that Teta Elzbieta should stay at home to keep house, and that Ona should help her. He would not have Ona working – he was not that sort of a man, he said, and she was not that sort of a woman. It would be a strange thing if a man like him could not support the family, with the help of the board of Jonas and Marija. He would not even hear of letting the children go to work – there were schools here in America for children, Jurgis had heard, to which they could go for nothing. […] Jurgis would have it that Stanislovas should learn to speak English, and grow up to be a skilled man.”

“There came no answer to it, however, and at last, the day before New Year’s, Jurgis bade good-by to Jack Duane. The latter gave him his address, or rather the address of his mistress, and made Jurgis promise to look him up. ‘Maybe I could help you out of a hole some day,’ he said, and added that he was sorry to have him go.”

“So, bit by bit, the feast takes form – there is a ham and a dish of sauerkraut, boiled rice, macaroni, bologna sausages, great piles of penny buns, bowls of milk, and foaming pitchers of beer. There is also, not six feet from your back, the bar, where you may order all you please and do not have to pay for it. “Eiksz! Graicziau!” screams Marija Berczynskas, and falls to work herself – for there is more upon the stove inside that will be spoiled if it be not eaten.”

“I learned early that class is universally admired. Almost any fault, sin or crime is considered more leniently if there’s a touch of class involved.”

“His being higher in learning and birth than the ruck o’ soldiers is anything but a proof of his worth. It shows his course to be down’ard.”

“He wasn’t quite good enough for me.”

“Looking back now, to Rahel it seemed as though this difficulty that their family had with classification ran much deeper than the jam-jelly question. Perhaps Ammu, Estha and she were the worst transgressors.”

″‘Pooh – I have as much of mother as father in me!’ she said. ‘All my prettiness comes from her, and she was only a dairymaid.‘”

“Pedigree, ancestral skeletons, monumental record, the D’Urberville lineaments, did not help Tess in her life’s battle as yet, even to the extent of attracting to her a dancing-partner over the heads of the commonest peasantry.”

“Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity. ”

“He was surprised to find this young woman – who though but a milkmaid had just that touch of rarity about her which might make her the envied of her housemates – shaping such sad imaginings.”

“Jesus!” the old lady cried. “You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I’ll give you all the money I’ve got!”

“This hotel – the Amazon – was for women only, and they were mostly girls my age with wealthy parents [...] and they were all going to posh secretarial schools like Katy Gibbs, where they had to wear hats and stockings and gloves to class, or they had just graduated from places like Katy Gibbs and were secretaries to executives and junior executives and simply hanging around in New York waiting to get married to some career man or other.”

It was as Harry suspected. Everyone here seemed to have been invited because they were connected to somebody well-known or influential – everyone except Ginny.

“What does he do, Tabitha?” my grandmother asked. That was a Wheelwright thing to ask. In my grandmother’s opinion, what one “did” was related to where one’s family “came from”—she always hoped it was from England, and in the seventeenth century. And the short list of things that my grandmother approved of “doing” was no less specific than seventeenth-century England.”

“It may be well to repeat here the saying that old men talk of what they have done, young men of what they are doing, and fools of what they expect to do. The Negro race has a rather large share of the last mentioned class.”

“In the schools of business administration Negroes are trained exclusively in the psychology and economics of Wall Street and are, therefore, made to despise the opportunities to run ice wagons, push banana carts, and sell peanuts among their own people. Foreigners, who have not studied economics but have studied Negroes, take up this business and grow rich.”

“As long as he was in the city, Planchet kept at the respectful distance he had imposed upon himself; but as soon as the road began to be more lonely and dark, he drew softly nearer, so that when they entered the Bois de Boulogne he found himself riding quite naturally side by side with his master.”

“When a white man sees persons of his own race tending downward to a level of disgrace he does not rest until he works out some plan to lift such unfortunates to higher ground; but the Negro forgets the delinquents of his race and goes his way to feather his own nest, as he has done in leaving the masses in the popular churches.”

“It seemed unreasonable to limit everyone’s life choices based on your ancestors’ ability to help the government, but that was how it all worked out.”

″‘I can’t make you like me. I can’t stand the thought of you hungry or cold or scared. I can’t make you a Six.‘”

“Our caste was just three away from the bottom. We were artists. And artists and classical musicians were only three steps up from dirt. Literally.”

“Ok, so maybe my white teammates had problems, serious problems, but none of their problems was life threatening . . . But I looked over at the Wellpinit Redskins, at Rowdy . . . I knew that two or three of those Indians might not have eaten breakfast that morning.”

“I know, I know, but some Indians think you have to act white to make your life better. Some Indians think you become white if you try to make your life better, if you become successful.”

″‘A king fortifies himself with a castle,’ observed the Count, ‘a gentleman with a desk.‘”

“Ani laughed. ‘A goose girl should feel honored to be mistaken for a lady with land to put a horse on, sir.’ ‘You didn’t say ‘sir’ when you stole my horse. Geric. My name’s Geric.‘”

“To be found alone with a man is shocking—a reason for a quick and necessary wedding. But to be found with a Gypsy! If I were to tell, Felicity would be ruined for life.”

“If I were a member of the class that rules, I would post men in all the neighborhoods of the nation, not to spy upon or club rebellious workers, not to break strikes or disrupt unions; but to ferret out those who no longer respond to the system in which they live.”

“It was clear that they were exploiting her—much to the annoyance of Madame Aubain, who in any case did not like the fact that Félicité‘s nephew was so familiar towards her son.”

″‘Oh, your nephew!’ Shrugging her shoulders, Madame Aubain resumed her pacing, as if to say, ‘I’d forgotten all about him! And why should I care anyway? A ship’s boy, a rogue, so what? Whereas my daughter… Think of that!’ ”

“The poor are crazy, the rich just eccentric.”

The Tree, home to Toby and his people, symbolizes through its physical structure, the social hierarchy of the people who dwell within it. Toby’s parents marriage, for example, is a rarity as his parents come from different branches of the Tree.

“He knew at once that he had made a mistake. Old Chudleigh Pomeroy wasn’t bad as Guildsmen went, but he didn’t like being answered back by a mere Third Class Apprentice.”

“Billy Buck sat down on the steps, because he was a cow-hand, and it wouldn’t be fitting that he should go first into the dining room.”