Carlos Ruiz Zafon Quotes

Class is real. It can't be faked.

The patience and forbearance of the poor are among the strongest bulwarks of the rich.

Class is a way of looking at society that divides people into different categories based on how much money they're willing to make.

Look, there is a sort of old view about class which is a very simplistic view that we have got the working class, the middle class and the upper class, I think it is more complicated than that.

Do not mistake a crowd of big wage-earners for the leisure class.

Capitalism is an organized system to guarantee that greed becomes the primary force of our economic system and allows the few at the top to get very wealthy and has the rest of us riding around thinking we can be that way, too - if we just work hard enough, sell enough Tupperware and Amway products, we can get a pink Cadillac.

When inequality gets too extreme, then it becomes useless for growth, and it can even become bad because it tends to lead to high perpetuation of inequality over time and low mobility.

Class - or the economic status of individuals - is evident in all societies, some very well stratified by a rigid caste system determined by birth.

We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet.

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

I'm not from the working class. I'm from the criminal class.

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.

I worry about growing income inequality. But I worry even more that the discussion is too narrowly focused. I worry that our outrage at the top 1 percent is distracting us from the problem that we should really care about: how to create opportunities and ensure a reasonable standard of living for the bottom 20 percent.

It has often been said, that there is but one rank of men in America… we have no artificial distinctions of men into noblemen and commoners among us, but it ought to be remarked, that superior degrees of industry and capacity, and above all, commerce, have introduced inequality of property among us, and these have introduced natural distinctions of rank in Pennsylvania, as certain and general as the artificial distinctions of men in Europe. This will ever be the case while commerce exists in this country.

An imbalance between the rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

The poor generally follow behavior patterns established by the rich.

Economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privilege

I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men, and where the profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent equality of property.

The competition of the poor takes away from the reward of the rich.

Americans have historically been more willing than Europeans to tolerate high inequality levels if accompanied by strong economic growth and a healthy middle class.

… perceptions of poverty have gone up because there’s been rising inequality.

Our nation’s political spectrum is not left to right, but top to bottom. People can locate themselves on this rich-to-poor pole for this is not a theoretical positioning: It’s based on our actual experience with money and power.

If we could support school curricula about social class, we might discuss the full complexity of 'wealth' within the parameters of our children's educational lives. Out of these lesson plans, we might talk more about what society values - and whether it rewards the right things.

In both Russia and the U.S., there are a very small number of very, very rich people, and then there are a lot of people who don't have anything. The less inequality you have in a society, the more social peace you have. It's kind of a no-brainer.

We have a myth of the classless society. You won't hear an American politician apart from Bernie Sanders talk about the working class. We are all middle class, apparently.