George Orwell Quotes

Inequality [is] a social control mechanism supported by financial interests’ belief in the desirability of oligarchy.

Common sense, in so far as it exists, is all for the bourgeoisie. Nonsense is the privilege of the aristocracy. The worries of the world are for the common people.

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

In Moscow, if you have money, you're king. If you don't - sorry, man, get lost. I mean, it's like this everywhere. But in Moscow, it's much more hard-core.

... I'm much closer to the people at the bottom than the people at the top, and the latter won't forgive me for it.

Some is more equal than others, as is well known. It ain't that your majority is outnumbered, you're just out-surrounded.

It's hard to get people to empathize with the poor. You can get some people to sympathize with the poor, but to empathize is actually very hard, because most people are not poor. I realized that scarcity gives you a thread.

The ruling class is smarter than you, and they're more creative. And if you forget that lesson, you go down the drain. Because if they weren't, they wouldn't be around as long as they have been and as strong as they have been.

The individual mirrors in his individuation the preordained social laws of exploitation, however mediated.

And understand: class differences will not save you.

Class is real. It can't be faked.

Language does not make one an elite.

Traditionally the great men of our country have sprung from poor environments; that being so, it would appear we have long suffered from a severe lack of poverty.

'Plutocracy.' It has a perfect nuance: chilly, inaccessible, icy-rich.

What we really need to be understanding is that all of these things matter and they all stem from the fact that certain people live with power and authority and they want to maintain it.

If there's an enduring theme in my work, it's probably the effects of class on American life.

Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them, or selectively lower it down to allow their friends, allies, and kin to scramble up. In other words: 'Who says meritocracy says oligarchy.'

I think Hollywood has a class system. The actors are like the inmates, but the truth is they're running the asylum.

It doesn't matter how much wisdom you have. If you don't have position, you have nothing. That's the tragedy of India.

The problem is that the U.K. in essence is a feudal society. It's everyone in their place.

This world is run by people who know how to do things. They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, there's a layer of people who run everything. But we - we're just peasants. We don't understand what's going on, and we can't do anything.

The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.

Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top.

Of course, in the United States, which at the time was a very young country, there were also class distinctions. They weren't as pronounced, but they quickly evolved as well.

To be clear, the gap between the have gots and the have nots is widening. In this most multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic America ever, that concerns me.