Throughout recorded time… there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other. The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable.

About George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both authoritarian communism and fascism), and support of democratic...

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In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

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We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine gun.

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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

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To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.

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Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

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More quotations tagged with “class”

The trouble is that rich people, well-to-do people, very often don't really know who the poor are; and that is why we can forgive them, for knowledge can only lead to love, and love to service. And so, if they are not touched by the poor, it's because they do not know them.

—Mother Teresa

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Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.

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We must be careful that the people who make $5,000 a year are not pitted against those who make $25,000 a year by those who make $900,000.

—Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski

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The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for errors; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes.

—Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

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The stress laid on upward social mobility in the United States has tended to obscure the fact that there can be more than one kind of mobility and more than one direction in which it can go. There can be ethical mobility as well as financial, and it can go down as well as up.

—Margaret Halsey

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History

20 Dec 2014 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

Throughout recorded time . . . there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other. The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable.