The bourgeois, for his part, possessed neither of the inordinate ambitions of the great nor of the patience of the poor, would seem to have to remain… - Bernard Groethuysen

The new man, wishing to enjoy his independence, needed a God with limited powers, a God whose authority was regulated by fundamental laws, so that the sinner, when summoned before the throne of the last judgment, might plead his cause, documents in hand.

Gradually disbelief became respectable. It acquired a moral character. By the mere fact that it was an integral part of the consciousness of a class—of the bourgeoisie—it became bourgeois. From an individual phenomenon, or a phenomenon confined to certain isolated groups, it became an expression of collective life.

As soon as he did not work, the poor man, whose poverty had sufficed to create his title in the world of pious legend, who had been regarded as bearing a sacred character because he symbolized the great affliction of mankind, was no longer the good friend of Jesus Christ. There was thus a type of poor whom Jesus Christ did not recognize, any more than the police did.