John Adams Quotes

The class struggle, to which Marx has specially drawn attention, is a real factor, the tokens of which are to be found on every page of history. But the struggle is not confined only to two classes: the proletariat and the capitalist; it occurs between an infinite number of groups with different interests, and above all between the elites contending for power. The existence of these groups may vary in duration, they may be based on permanent or more or less temporary characteristics. In the most savage peoples, and perhaps in all, sex determines two of these groups.

A deck of cards is built like the purest of hierarchies, with every card a master to those below it, a lackey to those above it.

Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines and Populace; and America is just ourselves with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly.

England is so defined, the class system, your education. I think what was unique about the Canterbury scene.

There are three classes of men; the retrograde, the stationary and the progressive.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

If you look at Charles Dickens's time, there were so many different levels of society and everybody understood their place in it, it was that complex and simple. I'm not sure we have that now.

English people are so trapped in this class paradigm.

The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent.

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

How rich our German life is compared to France or England: what an abundance of social types and customs with completely different origins... Germany is a world, whereas England and France, with their stereotypically divided three social classes, are but enlarged villages... what a stage for a Balzac.

One often has need of one, inferior to himself.

All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.

Everyone has class, one class or another.

As soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war.

Inequality of Mind and Body are so established by God Almighty in his Constitution of Human Nature that no art or policy can ever plain them down to a level.

The division of society into estates or castes means in effect that conceptually and organizationally these ‘natural’ forms are established without their economic basis ever becoming conscious

The stability of medieval society depended on the fixity of all of its parts, as that of modern society is on their mobility.

The higher classes constitute the mind of the single large whole of humanity; the lower classes constitute its limbs;

Order is Heaven's first law, and this confessed, Some are, and must be greater than the rest -

Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow.

In all social systems there must be a class to do the mean duties... It constitutes the very mudsills of society...Fortunately for the South, she found a race adapted to the purpose...We use them for that purpose and call them slave.

Believe me, Sir, those who attempt to level never equalize. In all societies consisting of various descriptions of citizens, some description must be uppermost. The levelers, therefore, only change and pervert the natural order of things.

In India, cast not class … is what counts most in popular life.

Caste in India is the first and last reality.