Social Ladder Quotes & Sayings

That is the great danger of meritocracy: the people who reach the top of the system are precisely the people who have most completely identified with the system and its demands, creating a vicious circle preventing any actual change. It is no accident that conservatives tend to employ the rhetoric of social mobility so readily, as social climbers generally do not ask questions about the ladder. — Adam Kotsko

The idols of modern culture have had a profound influence on the shape of our work today. In traditional societies people found their meaning and sense of value by submitting their interests and sacrificing their desires to serve higher causes like God, family, and other people. In modern societies there is often no higher cause than individual interests and desires. This shift powerfully changed the role of work in people's lives - it now became the way we defined ourselves. Traditional cultures tended to see people's place on the social ladder as assigned by nature or convention, each family having its "proper place." That view had put too little stock in the role of individual talent, ambition, and hard work for determining the outcome of one's life. But modern society responded by putting too much stock in the autonomous person. — Timothy Keller

For the next few minutes, there was a thorough rehashing of the courses (That meat was delicious. The sauce was perfect. And ooh that chocolate mousse.) This was a social nicety that seemed more prevalent the higher you climbed the social ladder and the less your hostess cooked. — Amor Towles

I write that crime is an unlawful act of violence that can be committed by anyone, and that punishment is the consequence designed for criminals who don't have the economic means to cover it up. Throughout history, men of wealth and power have been exempt from facing the consequences of their evil deeds. Crime, therefore, can be defined as an offense committed by an individual of inferior status in society. Punishment is a consequence forced on the perpetrator of the crime only if he occupies one of the lower steps of the social ladder — Mahbod Seraji

As we ascend the social ladder, viciousness wears a thicker mask. — Erich Fromm

From a very early age, I've had to interrupt my education to go to school. — George Bernard Shaw

He who seeks for methods without having a definite problem in mind seeks in the most part in vain. — David Hilbert

Despite their depressing circumstances, the Hernandez family had a certain dignity and strength about them. They were Christians, and they taught their children that God loved them and had a plan for their lives. Their little boy, David, internalized that message of hope. He never thought of himself as a victim even though he had every reason to feel cheated. His family was at the bottom of the social ladder without even a house to live in, but his worth as an individual was rooted in his faith. — James C. Dobson

John F. Kennedy, the man I had thought would define the political ideal for the rest of my days, was suddenly gone in the senseless violence of a single moment. — Tom Brokaw

Occupying the bottom end of the inequality ladder, and becoming a 'collateral victim' of a human action or a natural disaster, interact the way the opposite poles of magnets do: they tend to gravitate towards each other. — Zygmunt Bauman

You need to structure and organize your life so that you can do the maximum good for others and thus bring the maximum glory to God. — Tim Challies

We spend a remarkably small, shamefully small, percentage of our income on food. We manage to spend money on lots of other things. All up and down the social ladder you find people with plenty of money for cell phones, home entertainment systems, all other forms of entertainment. — Michael Pollan

Prison is, simply put, the bottom rung of the welfare ladder. — Stephen Reid

The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the greater the number of people he is connected with, the more power he has over other people, the more obvious is the predestination and inevitability of his every action. — Leo Tolstoy

The people who take society as an escape from work are putting it to its proper use; but when it becomes the thing worked for it distorts all the relations of life. — Edith Wharton

When you help the poorest in the world, you start to move them up an economic and social ladder, and they're not going to be moving toward violence or terrorism of the kind that we worry about. — Colin Powell

How do we attack important problems? Pose the right question. — Donald Sadoway

We ought therefore to suspect that a great mass of information respecting the Bible, and the introduction of it into the world, has been suppressed by the united tyranny of Church and State, for the purpose of keeping people in ignorance, and which ought to be known. — Thomas Paine

A final word on self-criticism: Do not beat up on yourself. Even if you think you know your flaws, there is no need to advertise them. Most people won't have noticed. — Philip Toshio Sudo

Got more patches on her than a pair of welfare overalls. — Stephen King

I'll put it on my table where I keep my drawings, Hassan said.
His saying that made me kind of sad. Sad for who Hassan was, where he lived. For how he'd accepted the fact that he'd grow old in that mud shack in the yard, the way his father had. — Khaled Hosseini

Avoid those who seek friends in order to maintain a certain social status or to open doors they would not otherwise be able to approach. — Paulo Coelho

When People Ask

How he's doing now, I have

no idea what to say except for,

"Better." I don't know if that's

true, or what goes on in a place

like Aspen Springs, not that any-

one knows he's there, thank God.

He has dropped off most people's

radar, although that's kind of odd.

Before he took this unbelievable

turn, Conner was top rung on our

social ladder. But with his crash

and burn no longer news of the day,

all but a gossipy few have quit

trying to fill in the blanks.

One exception is Kendra, who

for some idiotic reason still

loves him and keeps asking about

him, despite the horrible way he

dumped her. Kendra may be pretty,

but she's not especially bright. — Ellen Hopkins

...the whole of American life was organized around the cult of the powerful individual, that phantom ideal which Europe herself had only begun to outgrow in her last phase. Those Americans who wholly failed to realize this ideal, who remained at the bottom of the social ladder, either consoled themselves with hopes for the future, or stole symbolical satisfaction by identifying themselves with some popular star, or gloated upon their American citizenship, and applauded the arrogant foreign policy of their government. — Olaf Stapledon

I should say that psycho-analysis was confession without absolution. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Crucial to this is what conservatives see as the essence of America - the Ladder of Success myth. As long as free enterprise flourishes and anyone with enough self-discipline and imagination can become an entrepreneur, the Morality of Reward and Punishment will hold and all will be well. The logic of conservatism locates so-called "social" problems within people, not within society. For this reason, it would make no sense to conservatives to use class and social forces as forms of explanation and justification for social policy. Nature — George Lakoff

Star Trek was about social justice from day one
the stories were about the human pursuit for a better world, a better way of being, the next step up the ladder of sentience. The stories weren't about who we were going to fight, but who we were going to make friends with. It wasn't about defining an enemy
it was about creating a new partnership. That's why when Next Gen came along, we had a Klingon on the bridge. — David Gerrold

Every individual, from the highest to the lowest degree, has his place in the ladder of social life, and around him swirls a little world of interests, composed of stormy passions and conflicting atoms — Alexandre Dumas

I tend to think that the best face of humanity is that we learn. We explore, we study, we think. — Kurt Busiek

Know thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man. — Alexander Pope

Not only CAN anyone be an entrepreneur, but they MUST be. — Reid Hoffman

My mom believed that you make your own luck. Over the stove she had hung these old, maroon painted letters that spell out, "MANIFEST." The idea being if you thought and dreamed about the way you wanted your life to be
if you just envisioned it long enough, it would come into being.
But as hard as I had manifested Astrid Heyman with her hand in mine, her blue eyes gazing into mine, her lips whispering something wild and funny and outrageous in my ear, she had remained totally unaware of my existence. Truly, to even dream of dreaming about Astrid, for a guy like me, in my relatively low position on the social ladder of Cheyenne Mountain High, was idiotic. And with her a senior and me a junior? Forget it.
Astrid was just lit up with beauty: shining blonde ringlets, June sky blue eyes, slightly furrowed brow, always biting back a smile, champion diver on the swim team. Olympic level.
Hell, Astrid was Olympic level in every possible way. — Emmy Laybourne

Maybe we try to find them in other people. In kindness and generosity; those things don't disappear. — Anthony Marra

When you're an immigrant, you're at the bottom of the ladder. You might not be at the bottom of the ladder economically. Those contradictions led me to feel that the role in society I was given didn't jive with my sense of myself. I think, in fact, that is the case with most people. Everybody feels themselves to be in an original relationship to creation, and feels confined by their social role. — Vijay Seshadri

The freedom that comes with globalization is freedom for the rich and powerful nations to further exploit and further marginalize those at the bottom of the social ladder. — Anita Roddick

Initially, it was about kids at the bottom rung of the social ladder, due to their looks and their class background. But they're also outsiders in terms of their peer group. — Jim McKay

When I was young, I ran to see Astaire and Rogers, Huston, Lubitsch - they were formative for me. I also read 'Flash Gordon' when I was 6, but if I were still reading it when I was 16, I'd have been an imbecile. — Lina Wertmuller