Blue Collar Quotes

“His mind filled with visions of a decadent kleptocracy in rapid decline, abetted by both political parties. America's masses, fed on processed poison bought with a food stamp swipe card. Low-skill workers, structurally unable to ever contribute again and too dumb to know their old jobs weren't coming back. The banks in Gotham leaching the last drops of wealth out of the country. Corporations unrestrained by any notion of national interest. The system of property law in shambles. The world drowning in debt.”
― George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

“All you have to do, gentlemen, for you have the numbers, is to unite on one idea - that the workingmen shall rule the country. What man makes, belongs to him, and the workingman made this country.”
― Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present

“If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in the pockets than all the property of capitalists. . .”
― Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present

“We are always in these days endeavoring to separate intellect and manual labor; we want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always working, and we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative; whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to be working, and both should be gentlemen in the best sense.”
― John Ruskin

“The occupants of the other three looked like the people they had seen rioting in the streets of Paris that morning. They were citizens of the other France, the France one didn’t read about in guidebooks. They were the put-upon and the left-behind, the ones without glittering degrees from elite institutions of learning. Globalization and automation had eroded their value in the workforce. The service economy was their only option. Their counterparts in Britain and America had already had their say at the ballot box. France, reckoned Gabriel, would be next.”
― Daniel Silva, The New Girl

“You know, I understand the way that some people view manual labor. With a kind of sneer, looking down your nose at it, like it’s less. But I’ve never found anything more satisfying than going out and making a change with my own two hands. Seeing a project through from start to finish, knowing that what I did…that it changed something. The shape of an object, the landscape. When you’re fighting fires, that your hands helped put up the blockade that preserved the wilderness. That you dug those trenches, ran those fire lines that saved houses, trees, animals. Lives. There’s no shame in it.”
― Maisey Yates, Cowboy Christmas Redemption

“an unbearably tense and disorienting paradox that underscores everyday life in a working-class environment—on the one hand it’s an abrasive and in-your-face world, yet, at the same time, much of it seems extrinsic and is perpetually uninvolving. One is relentlessly overwhelmed and understimulated all at the same time.”
― Claire-Louise Bennett, Checkout 19

“Like every other house-renting, paycheck-to-paycheck, heel dragging working American, it wouldn't matter if I stepped in it by accident or was pushed, or simply whiffed it as I walked by. With the powers in play, guilt or innocence had nothing to do with anything.”
― James Anderson, The Never-Open Desert Diner

“According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “in the last few years, student loan debt has hovered around the $1 trillion mark, becoming the second-largest consumer obligation after mortgages and invoking parallels with the housing bubble that precipitated the 2007–2009 recession…the proportion of the U.S. population with student loans increased from about 7 percent in 2003 to about 15 percent in 2012; in addition, over the same period, the average student loan debt for a 40-year-old borrower almost doubled, reaching a level of more than $30,000.” Grad students incur even more debt, and the salaries, especially in education, aren’t usually high enough to make that master’s degree (which is a great academic boost) a worthwhile return on investment financially. If it turns out that college isn’t for you or if problems prevent you from graduating, you can end up with lots of debt and no degree to show for it. Having hours toward college doesn’t qualify you for a job that requires a degree, so you could end up with the debt and without the necessary letters behind your name. In contrast, blue collar training requires fewer years and costs less than a college degree; in some fields, you learn on the job while being paid.”
― Kathryn Bruzas Hauer, Financial Advice for Blue Collar America

“Thou shalt have liberty, but no will. - A Corporate Commandment”
― Lamine Pearlheart

“A beach bum is just a blue-collar lounge lizard without a roof over their head.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Listen Mr. Namaki, you're a king to me
You're a symbol of what we should strive to be
In this modern day and age, you're an alchemist
So let me join you, sing your song up the hills”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Letter 19

“Society must show that blue-collar crime never pays. Insidious white-collar crime pays very well, and nothing is declared. It's the same reason why Financial Education, probably the most important subject of all, is absent from the general school curriculum - to keep the have-nots ignorant and the establishment's riches safe.”
― Stewart Stafford

“There is no CEO, no janitor, just people.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans

“May all your blues be "The Blue Collar Follies”
― Daren Peel

“She would also be lying to herself if she didn't admit that a Louie V hanging from her shoulder made her feel a certain type of way. Her desire to stand up for the working man had dimmed a little. Amir was the bleach to her blue-collar status. All colors eventually turn white. Or rather green.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“When those of us in the academy who are working class or from working-class backgrounds share our perspectives, we subvert the tendency to focus only on the thoughts, attitudes, and experiences of those who are materially privileged.”
― bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom