middle class quotes

Nothing could moderate, in the bosom of the great English middle class, their passionate, absorbing, almost blood-thirsty clinging to life.

- Matthew Arnold
  Essays in Criticism First Series, preface.

We had intended you to be The next Prime Minister but three: The stocks were sold; the Press was squared; The Middle Class was quite prepared. But as it is!† My language fails! Go out and govern New South Wales!

- (Joseph) Hilaire Pierre Belloc
  Cautionary  Tales,'Jim'.

What foolsmiddle-classgirls are to expect other people to respect the same gods as themselves and E M Forster.

- Margaret Drabble
  A Summer Birdcage, ch.11.

That is the worst thing about being a middle-class woman†you have more knowledge of yourself and the world: you are equipped to make choices, but there are none left to make.

- Alison Lurie
  The War Between The Tates, ch.3.

He was rotund, provincial, resolutely middle-class, studiously ambiguous and sometimes wavering in his opinions.

- Robert D(ennis) McFadden
  Of Harold Wilson. In the NewYork Times, 25 May.

The silver-haired, pipe-smoking northerner was a consummate British politician: tenacious, shrewd, manipulative, a blend of homespun tastes, acid wit and pragmatic, often shifting policies†the symbol of an emerging middle-class Briton. McGonagall

- Robert D(ennis) McFadden
  Of Harold Wilson. In the NewYork Times, 25 May.

Fora Jewish Puritanofthemiddleclass,thenovel isserious, the novel is work, the novel is conscientious application why,thenovelispractically theretailbusinessalloveragain.

- Howard Nemerov
  Journal of the Fictive Life,'Reflexions of the Novelist Felix Ledger'.

We ofthesinking middle class†havenothing to losebut our aitches.

- George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
  The Road to Wigan Pier, ch.13.

If any writer thinks the world is full of middle-class people of nice sensibilities, then he is out of his mind.

-Tom (Thomas Ridley) Sharpe
  In the Observer, 3 Feb.

A moderately honest man with a moderately faithful wife, moderate drinkers both, in a moderately healthy house: that is the true middle-class unit.

- George Bernard Shaw
  Man and Superman,'Maxims for Revolutionists: Moderation'.

I'm one of theundeserving poor†up agen middle-class moralityall the time† What is middle-class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything.

- George Bernard Shaw
  Alfred Doolittle. Pygmalion, act 2.