Nicholas M. Butler Quotes

For months it seemed that a revolution was certain. But instead, slavery seems more likely now. The working class no longer has the physical resistance for a revolution, and the Entente is too strong, and Russia is too weak.

If you have extremes of haves and have-nots where the gap keeps growing, the have-nots group together and create social disorder, as they can't see a way out of their situation.

We have two American flags always; one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it, it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it, it means danger, revolution.

Some have objected to the instruction of the lower classes from an apprehension that it would lift them above their sphere, make them dissatisfied with their station in life, and, by impairing the habits of subordination, endanger the tranquility of the state; an objection devoid surely of all force and validity.

It is true that the aristocracies seem to have abused their monopoly of legal knowledge; and at all events their exclusive possession of the law was a formidable impediment to the success of those popular movements which began to be universal in the western world.

There is a process of social and of political differentiation going on in the real working class all the time.

The conclusion you can draw from these characteristics is that you have an uneven development of class activity and an uneven development of class consciousness in the working class.

All history has been a history of class struggles between dominated classes at various stages of social development.

And understand: class differences will not save you.

I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half.

The working classes were becoming more and more sharply aware of the complex causes of international malaise.

The vast concourse of people who had assembled to witness the triumphant arrival of the successful travellers was of the lowest orders of mechanics and artisans, among whom great distress and a dangerous spirit of discontent with the government at that time prevailed.

The ignorant classes are the dangerous classes.

To judge from all Communist papers, magazines and brochures, and from all public assemblies, one might even surmise that a revolt of the poor peasants in Western Europe might break out at any moment!

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

The Sixties was a time of breaking down class barriers, although I think class still exists today in some areas.

In Europe the various ranks of society are, like the strata of the earth, fixed and fossilized. There can be no great change without a terrible upheaval, a social earthquake.

I'm interested in illuminating the enormous disparity between vast poverty and the tiny upper class... This vast inequity is unfair by definition, and I am interested in illuminating that and, where possible, changing that.

Revolutions break out when opposite parties, the rich and the poor, are equally balanced, and there is little or nothing between them.

Is the great working class oppressed? Yes, undoubtedly it is. God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little.

This College system went into practice to draw a line of demarcation between the two classes of society—it separated the children of the rich from the children of the poor.

All past history with the exception of the primitive stages was the history of class struggles.

Women are now in the situation of the mass of mankind a few years since, when science and learning were in the hands of priests, and property was held by vassalage.

My job is to raise issues relating to class in Ireland.

In times not long gone by, the higher and richer classes were in complete possession of the government. Their power was the master grievance of the country. The habit of voting at the bidding of an employer, or of a landlord, was so firmly established, that hardly anything was capable of shaking it