When you go to work, if your name is on the building, you’re rich. If your name is on your desk, you’re middle-class. If your name is on your shirt, you’re poor.

poverty economics work wealth class

About Rich Hall

Portrait of Rich Hall

Richard Travis Hall (born June 10, 1954) is an American comedian, writer, director, actor, and musician, first coming to prominence as a sketch comedian in the 1980s. He wrote and performed for a range of American networks, in series such as Fridays, Not Necessarily the News (popularising the "sniglet" neologism),...

More quotations from Rich Hall

When you go to work, if your name is on the building, you're rich. If your name is on your desk, you're middle-class. If your name is on your shirt, you're poor.

More quotations tagged with “class”

Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.

privilege wealth class golf cloths

History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up.

history change class

A society that gives to one class all the opportunities for leisure and to another all the burdens of work condemns both classes to spiritual sterility.

—Lewis Mumford

society work inequality class leisure sterility

During my second year of nursing school, our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. "Absolutely," the professor said. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello." I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.

—Joann C. Jones

attention career school class care smile

Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

—Eugene V. Debs

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