Quotes about social inequality

Class is the most difficult subject for American writers to deal with as it is the most difficult for the English to avoid.

If there ever are great revolutions there, they will be caused by the presence of the blacks upon American soil. That is to say, it will not be the equality of social conditions but rather their inequality which may give rise thereto.

The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men and to relieve their distresses. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public.

Projected upon the natural world... is the idea of privilege. ...Ever since the invention of civilization, there have been privileged classes... some groups that oppress others and that work to maintain these hierarchies of power. The children of the privileged grow up expecting that, through no particular effort of their own, they will retain a privileged position.

My feelings, gratitude, for instance, are denied me simply because of my social position.

A great British prime minister once remarked that the people were divided into two nations, the rich and the poor, and in effect that these had no knowledge of each other. One might say the same, perhaps, of those who live in parts of the world where segregation by races is practised. But these barriers, or the reasons for them, belong to a part of our history which is fortunately passing away. There is one barrier, however, which no amount of progress or tolerance or legislation can ever diminish. I'm talking about the barrier between the attractive and the unattractive.

No one with any sense of self-respect will place himself on an equality in the matter of affection with those who are less lucky than himself in birth, health, money, good looks, capacity, or anything else. Indeed, that dislike and even disgust should be felt by the fortunate for the unfortunate, or at any rate for those who have been discovered to have met with any of the more serious and less familiar misfortunes, is not only natural, but desirable for any society, whether of man or brute.

[Footnote: The universal spirit of the laws of every country is always to take the part of the strong against the weak, and the part of him who has against him who has not; this defect is inevitable, and there is no exception to it.] From this first contradiction spring all the other contradictions between the real and the apparent, which are to be found in the civil order. The many will always be sacrificed to the few, the common weal to private interest; those specious words—justice and subordination—will always serve as the tools of violence and the weapons of injustice; hence it follows that the higher classes which claim to be useful to the rest are really only seeking their own welfare at the expense of others; from this we may judge how much consideration is due to them according to right and justice. It remains to be seen if the rank to which they have attained is more favourable to their own happiness to know what opinion each one of us should form with regard to his own lot. This is the study with which we are now concerned; but to do it thoroughly we must begin with a knowledge of the human heart.