Skip to content

We all like to think of ourselves as a standard, and I can see that it is genuinely difficult for the English middle class to suppose that the working class is not desperately anxious to become just like itself. I am afraid this must be unlearned.

— Raymond Williams Culture and Society (1958)

Another quote →

More quotes by Raymond Williams

The gap between our feelings and our social observation is dangerously wide.

Realism and the Contemporary Novel (1961)

Every aspect of personal life is radically affected by the quality of general life, and yet the general life is seen at its most important in completely personal terms.

Realism and the Contemporary Novel (1961)

Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.

Keywords (1983)

It is then in making hope practical, rather than despair convincing, that we must resume and change and extend our campaigns.

The Politics of Nuclear Disarmament (1980)

If from poetry we expect a succession of signals for the release of miscellaneous private emotion we are likely to find Tears, Idle Tears valuable.

Reading and Criticism (1950)

All Raymond Williams quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Raymond Williams (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.