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Class Consciousness Quotes

Reflections on class, culture, and politics

This page gathers quotes about class consciousness, from Oxford-era etiquette shaping social identity to socialist calls for working-class faith.

In all my novels, a sense of place - not just geographic but social - is a critical element. I have always been drawn to the novels of Edith Wharton, among others, where social dynamics are crucial. Wharton's class consciousness...

Quotes by Susan Wiggs

My father was a graduate student at Oxford in the early 1960s, where the conventions and etiquette of clothing were crucial to the pervasive class consciousness of the place and time.

Quotes by Russell Smith

It's true: one of the things that I've always thought about American society is that you never get the sort of natural politicisation of class consciousness that you would get in the United Kingdom or even in Australia.

Quotes by Peter Carey

The agricultural working people should be imbued with a thoroughgoing faith in socialism and steadfast anti-imperialist and class consciousness so that they can regard our style of socialism as their life and soul, love it ardently, and fight staunchly against...

Quotes by Kim Jong-un

Always Quotes

The only conclusion you can draw from the real historical movement is that by and large, in day-to-day life, what Lenin called trade union consciousness dominates the working class. I would call it elementary class consciousness of the working class.

Quotes by Ernest Mandel

The conclusion you can draw from these characteristics is that you have an uneven development of class activity and an uneven development of class consciousness in the working class.

Quotes by Ernest Mandel

You can have relatively high levels of class consciousness with a lower level of class militancy than one would have expected.

Quotes by Ernest Mandel

Women's propaganda must touch upon all those questions which are of great importance to the general proletarian movement. The main task is, indeed, to awaken the women's class consciousness and to incorporate them into the class struggle.

Quotes by Clara Zetkin

Frequently Asked Questions

What does class consciousness mean in these quotes?
It refers to an awareness of one's social or economic class and how that shapes identity, politics, and daily life.
Is there a quote about literary treatment of class?
Yes, one quote credits novelists like Edith Wharton for treating social dynamics as a critical, place-rooted element of storytelling.
Does a quote describe Oxford-era class awareness?
Yes, one speaker recalls how clothing etiquette at Oxford in the early 1960s reflected a pervasive class consciousness of that era.
Is there a quote linking class consciousness to socialism?
Yes, one quote calls for agricultural workers to hold steadfast socialist and anti-imperialist class consciousness as part of their worldview.
Does any quote compare countries directly?
Yes, one contrasts American society with the United Kingdom's more natural politicisation of class consciousness.

Another line compares how American society handles class politics differently than the United Kingdom, tying place and class closely together.