"It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance."

Class, Power, Inequality, Poverty, Ignorance

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"It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance."

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"The middle class were invented to give the poor hope; the poor, to make the rich feel special; the rich, to humble the middle class."

Mokokoma Mokhonoana, South African Philosopher

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"I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff-box from an emperor."

Lord Byron, British Poet

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"Starting out in a beginner class and really understanding the fundamentals of yoga is really important."

Mariel Hemingway, American Actress

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"I'm painfully middle class."

Valerie Harper, American Actress

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"It is almost as difficult to keep a first class person in a fourth class job, as it is to keep a fourth class person in a first class job."

Alexandre Dumas, French Dramatist

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

Ayn Rand, Russian Writer

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"I've been working on this feature script for Master Class, a play by Terrence McNally that won a lot of Tonys."

Faye Dunaway, American Actress

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"I'm only going to be running the Pro Class this season, that way I can focus on the Pro Championship."

Ben Jackson, American Drummer

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"I was always the class clown."

Kel Mitchell, American Actor

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"I can't remember much about the early flights, except that it was ages before we got into First Class."

Phil Collins, English Musician

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Explore more quotes by George Orwell

"Big Brother is watching you."

Family

"Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal."

Relationship

"If you have no money, men won't care for you, women won't love you; won't, that is, care for you or love you the last little bit that matters."

Relationship

"Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist."

Control

"The animals were happy as they had never conceived it possible to be. Every mouthful of food was an acute positive pleasure, now that it was truly their own food, produced by themselves and for themselves, not doled out to them by a grudging master. With the worthless parasitical human beings gone, there was more for everyone to eat. There was more leisure too, inexperienced though the animals were."

Freedom

"Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties."

Politics

"He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless,because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so ..."

Emotion

"But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. You had to cling on to that. When you put it in words it sounded reasonable: it was when you looked at the human beings passing you on the pavement that it became an act of faith."

Hope

"Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house."

Literature

"One wants to live, of course, indeed one only stays alive by virtue of the fear of death, but I think, as I thought then, that it is better to die violently and not too old."

Mortality