“We are reverting to the civilization of luggage, and historians of the future will note how the middle classes accreted possessions without taking root in the earth, and may find in this the secret of their imaginative poverty.”

“In effect, historians abolished poverty by the simple device of taking it off the agenda.”

“I noticed, rich people never toss away their pennies in their driveways, middle-class always chuck them there, and stray dogs lick up what little pennies they find on poverty ground.”

“The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers. ”

“Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.”

“I once heard Jerry Yang, the cofounder of Yahoo!, quote a senior Chinese government official as saying, "Where people have hope, you have a middle class." I think this is a very useful insight. The existence of large, stable middle classes around the world is crucial to geopolitical stability, but middle class is a state of mind, not a state of income. That's why a majority of Americans always describe themselves as "middle class," even though by income statistics some of them wouldn't be considered as such. "Middle class" is another way of describing people who believe that they have a pathway out of poverty or lower-income status toward a higher standard of living and a better future for their kids.”