David Brooks Quotes

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.

We once had a society stratified by bloodlines, in which the Protestant Establishment was in one class, immigrants were in another and African-Americans were in another. Now we live in a society stratified by education. In many ways this system is more fair, but as the information economy matures, we are learning it comes with its own brutal barriers to opportunity and ascent.

And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it's not supposed to be.

The difference between rich and poor is becoming more extreme, and as income inequality widens the wealth gap in major nations, education, health and social mobility are all threatened.

A meritocracy increases inequality --- by its very nature, it has to.

Class still matters in Britain today.

There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.

They cannot divide us by saying that you're middle class or you're lower class.

Upper classes are a nation's past; the middle class is its future.

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents;... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy.

The prime culprit in causing contemporary social inequality seems to be merit.

Distinction in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions.

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

That which in England we call the middle class is in America virtually the nation.

There seems to be an idea abroad in this land as well as in others, that a certain class of people are for the purpose of producing servants for another class of people, and that this servant-producing class has no right to give their children an education that is calculated to elevate them above the position of their parents. We are not in sympathy with this idea.

Surrounded by the evidence of their success, the wealthy come to believe that they are fundamentally better than other Americans and that working people deserve their declining fortunes. They trumpet meritocracy while ensuring that their children enjoy crushing advantages from birth. They have unprecedented access to politicians and use it to push policies that swell their wealth while defunding institutions, such as public education, that sustain opportunities for less-fortunate Americans.

The rich do not want people who come from poor families to rise to the highest position in the country.

All countries have poor people. Yet it's a very rare country which understands the indignities of poverty, while education systems maintain the status quo. The children of the elite go to the best schools and get the best jobs, not because they are the best. We're not taking advantage of the intellectual power on this planet.

Inequality is partly a marker of success.

Class and the snobbery it provokes still matter far too much in Britain, but we are a far more mobile society than we used to be.

An old joke has an Oxford professor meeting an American former graduate student and asking him what he's working on these days. 'My thesis is on the survival of the class system in the United States.' 'Oh really, that's interesting: one didn't think there was a class system in the United States.' 'Nobody does. That's how it survives.

For all the chatter that Britain has moved beyond class, recent studies have found that it determines the life chances of British people more today than at any point since the Second World War... A child born into a rich family in Britain will almost certainly live and die rich, while a child born into a poor family will almost certainly live and die poor.

I've always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level.

I believe that Britain is becoming more class-conscious, and I quake at the very idea of Old Etonians ruling the world again.