Quotes About Classism

When she saw him come nigh, she said, Away, kitchen knave, out of the wind, for the smell of thy bawdy clothes grieveth me.

Just 'cause she's farting through silk doesn't mean she can shit on people who don't have any money.

Most Bolton students were scions of the city's wealthiest families. My crewe stuck out like hooker at church. We werent part of their pampered, priveliged world, and many of our classmates were quick to remind us of that fact. Taunting the "boat kids" was practically a varsity sport.

Only a handful of inmates have ever gone to trial. Many were arrested years ago on minor charges such as stealing chickens or bicycles. The police refuse to take them before a judge, so they languish indefinitely, with no sentence to serve. If you're a rich murderer or rapist, you can easily just bribe your way out of trouble. But if you're a poor chicken thief and you get caught, you're lost.

For we have a young lord and a middle-aged baronet—a shocking pair, who should not be allowed to live; but for family influence they would be doing their twenty years' penal servitude in jail, instead of living comfortably sequestered here. Like Ouida's high-born heroes, they "stick to their order," and do not mingle with the rest of us. They ignore us so completely that we cannot help looking up to them in spite of their vices—just as we should do outside.

There's no scandal like rags, nor any crime so shameful as poverty.

he was not in favor of their acquiring any additional learning, for fear they would fill their minds with ideas unsuited to their station and condition.

but his monumental pride prevented him from recognizing in the man any virtues beyond those that marked him as a good peon.

That the young rich smell the stink of the poor and learn to find it a bit amusing. They had to laugh, otherwise it would be too terrifying.

They [Harvard academia] liked the poor, but didn't like the smell of the poor.

The matrix out of which these powerful decisions are born is sometimes called racism, sometimes classicism, sometimes sexism. Each is an accurate term surely, but each is also misleading. The source is a deplorable inability to project, to become the "other," to imagine her or him. It is an intellectual flaw, a shortening of the imagination, and reveals an ignorance of gothic proportions as well as a truly laughable lack of curiosity.

When you see a rich man's wife shaking her head over the thriftlessness of the poor because they do not save, pity the lady's ignorance; but do not irritate the poor by repeating her nonsense to them. —George Bernard Shaw The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism

There will never be slaves in Britain,' Godalming continued, 'but those who stay warm will naturally serve us, as the excellent Bessie has just served me. Have a care, lest you wind up the equivalent of some damned regimental water-bearer.' In India, I knew a water-bearer who was a better man than most.

Because for people like me, there are two hells," Nessa said. "One where there's fire and brimstone and another filled with rich white people. And I don't want you beating up the first person who asks me to get them a drink.

A pior coisa é suportar um rico prepotente.

It's like they can smell the public school on me.

It is always considered a piece of impertinence in England if a man of less than two or three thousand a year has any opinions at all upon important subjects.

I have never been able to understand why pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham should be refined and polite, while a rat-killing match in Whitechapel is low.

Our speech accurately reflects the prejudices of the ruling group. Since the rulers and the rich and the educated (who directed language) generally lived in cities, we developed such words as "villain," which meant a rustic; "heathen" and "pagan," which also indicated those who dwelt in the country; "boor," which meant a farmer; and many other such words which downgraded rural inhabitants.

If you're not rich, you're a lesser being who shouldn't have the gall to expect a living wage from the decent people who are.

We'd better not speak against misogyny if, in the same breath, we're not also speaking against transphobia and homophobia and racism and classism and poverty. This is one fight. It always has been.

Scratch a Yale man with both hands and you'll be lucky to find a coast-guard. Usually you find nothing at all.

Sexism and racism and homophobia and classism are so naturalized. All these stereotypes make people think it's just normal that straight white men are getting all the breaks.

I think you can tell a great deal from a name. For me, there are certain names that I hear, and I think, 'Urgh.' For me, a name is a shortcut of finding out what class that child comes from and makes me ask, 'Do I want my children to play with them?'