“The biggest threat to American power in the long run is the persistent decline in its middle class standard of living today.”

“Today’s middle class lives better than did the Royalty of not so long ago, and yet humans today don’t seem very happy.”

“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.”

“the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the middle classes, that occurred in France during the Third Republic and the fin de siècle”

“It's very impossible to live by yesterday's standards and expect extraordinary results today. Live life with passion!”

“The Poverty Tour provided the opportunity to meet many people who had been living paycheck to paycheck even before the economic downturn. To so quickly slide from the great middle into the underworld of the poor validated our suspicions that perhaps these citizens never really were bona fide, middle class Americans. Indeed, some economists assert that the middle class evaporated decades ago.”