The bourgeoisie is simply the contented portion of the people. The bourgeois is the man who now has time to sit down.
 Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862). copy citation

add
Author Victor Hugo
Source Les Misérables
Topic bourgeoisie time
Date 1862
Language English
Reference
Note Translation by Isabel F. Hapgood in 1887
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/135/135-h/135-h.htm

Context

“Yesterday it was appetite, to-day it is plenitude, to-morrow it will be satiety. The phenomenon of 1814 after Napoleon was reproduced in 1830 after Charles X. The attempt has been made, and wrongly, to make a class of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie is simply the contented portion of the people. The bourgeois is the man who now has time to sit down. A chair is not a caste. But through a desire to sit down too soon, one may arrest the very march of the human race. This has often been the fault of the bourgeoisie. One is not a class because one has committed a fault.” source