Inequality Quotes - Page 5

• A society that gives to one class all the opportunities for leisure, and to another all the burdens of work, dooms both classes to spiritual sterility.

  Lewis Mumford

  Spiritual, Opportunity, Class

  "Faith for Living". Book by Lewis Mumford, 1940.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.

  Eugene V. Debs

  Money, Women, Order

  Statement to the Court, delivered 14 [or 18] September 1918, Federal Court of Cleveland, Ohio

  207 Copy quote

  Show source

• Essential to the attainment of these national goals is the moral imperative of ensuring social justice and respect for human dignity. The great biblical tradition enjoins on all peoples the duty to hear the voice of the poor. It bids us to break the bonds of injustice and oppression which give rise to glaring, and indeed, scandalous social inequalities. Reforming the social structures which perpetuate poverty and the exclusion of the poor first requires a conversion of mind and heart.

  Pope Francis

  Heart, Biblical, Voice

  34 Copy quote

• Inequality is not just an issue between individuals, between classes, between regions. It's between urban and rural.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Class, Issues, Urban

  Source: www.macleans.ca

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do not banish reason for inequality; but let your reason serve to make the truth appear where it seems hid, and hide the false seems true.

  William Shakespeare

  Reason, Seems

  William Shakespeare, James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, George Steevens (1821). “The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare”, p.181

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• You have to be interested in inequality. The issue of inequality and that of poverty are not separable.

  Amartya Sen

  Issues, Poverty

  Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. September 29, 2011.

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• Inequality makes everyone unhappy, the poor most of all, and that is well within the remit of the state. More money gives less extra happiness the richer we get, yet we are addicted to earning and spending more every year.

  Polly Toynbee

  Happiness, Years, Giving

  "It is not fanciful to make the pursuit of happiness a political imperative" by Polly Toynbee, www.theguardian.com. June 15, 2006.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• White privilege is the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements benefits and choices bestowed on people solely because they are white. Generally white people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it.

  Peggy McIntosh

  White Privilege, People, Choices

  78 Copy quote

• The capitalist workplace is one of the most profoundly undemocratic institutions on the face of the Earth. Workers have no say over decisions affecting them. If workers sat on the board of directors of democratically operated self-managed enterprises, they wouldn't vote for the wildly unequal distribution of profits to benefit a few and for cutbacks for the many.

  Richard D. Wolff

  Self, Decision, Voting

  "The Progressive Interview". Interview with Ed Rampell, www.democracyatwork.info. April 10, 2014.

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are only three ways by which any individual can get wealth — by work, by gift or by theft. And, clearly, the reason why the workers get so little is that the beggars and thieves get so much.

  Henry George

  Money, Work, Way

  "Social Problems".

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• Was the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others, that these may beg or starve in a fruitful land; or was it made to preserve all her children?

  Gerrard Winstanley

  Children, Equality, Men

  87 Copy quote

• The disorganisers are those who want to level everything: property, comforts, the price of commodities, the various services rendered to the State... who want the workmen in the camp to receive the salary of the legislator... who want to level even talents, knowledge, the virtues, because they themselves have none of these things.

  Jacques Pierre Brissot

  Knowledge, Equality, Political

  37 Copy quote

• No white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man’s clothes, eats the white man’s food, speaks the white man’s language, and professes the white man’s religion.

  Booker T. Washington

  Food, Men, Thinking

  W. E. B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington (2012). “Three African-American Classics: Up from Slavery, The Souls of Black Folk and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, p.47, Courier Corporation

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have a religion-but you will call it blasphemy. It is that there is a God for the rich man but none for the poor.....Perhaps your religion will sustain you,will feed you-I place no dependence in mine. Our religions are alike, though, in one respect-neither can make a man happy when he is out of luck.

  Mark Twain

  Happiness, Happy, God

  Mark Twain (2016). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain”, p.182, Chartwell

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• We still live in a world of such gross injustice and inequality, that only privileged people like ourselves can afford to think of eros and art as top concerns in life. They are important, for sure, but I think it's high time to shift priorities around, away from selfish indulgence, and toward more concern for the wellbeing of so many others who suffer atrocities, injustice, and famine, all over the planet.

  Massimo Pigliucci

  Art, Selfish, Thinking

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer's you are an old fart. That's how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.

  Terry Pratchett

  Cancer, Alzheimer's, Differences

  9 Copy quote

• We can do better. ...We can't ignore the inequalities that persist in our justice system that undermine our most deeply held values of fairness and equality.

  Hillary Clinton

  Fairness And Equality, Justice, Persist

  8 Copy quote

• The important issue is not how much inequality there is but how much opportunity there is for individuals to get out of the bottom classes and into the top. If there is enough movement upward, people will accept the efficiency of the markets. If you have opportunity, there is a great tolerance for inequality. That has been the saving grace of the American system.

  Milton Friedman

  Opportunity, Class, Issues

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The inequality between the world's individuals is staggering.

  Zygmunt Bauman

  World, Individual, Staggering

  Source: www.theoryculturesociety.org

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I trace the inequality to a particular set of decisions that we took when we lowered the tax rate from 91% down to very low levels at the top, where we stripped away regulations. So the result of that was not a more dynamic economy, but a more unequal society. We tried the experiment of trickle-down. A third of a century later, we can say fairly definitively that it was a failure.

  Joseph Stiglitz

  Decision, Levels, Regulation

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• A person of good intelligence and of sensitivity cannot exist in this society very long without having some anger about the inequality - and it's not just a bleeding-heart, knee-jerk, liberal kind of a thing - it is just a normal human reaction to a nonsensical set of values where we have cinnamon flavored dental floss and there are people sleeping in the street.

  George Carlin

  Heart, Sleep, Dental Floss

  148 Copy quote

• Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Envy, Want

  Adam Smith (1809). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.95

  108 Copy quote

  Show source

• Early investment in the lives of disadvantaged children will help reduce inequality, in both the short and the long run.

  James Heckman

  Running, Children, Long

  20 Copy quote

• Nature is unfair? So much the better, inequality is the only bearable thing, the monotony of equality can only lead us to boredom.

  Francis Picabia

  Nature, Equality, Boredom

  16 Copy quote

• Health inequalities and the social determinants of health are not a footnote to the determinants of health. They are the main issue.

  Michael Marmot

  Issues, Social, Footnotes

  38 Copy quote