Edward Snowden Quotes

All those people who went out [to Occupy Wall Street] missed work, didn't get paid. Those were individuals who were already feeling the effects of inequality, so they didn't have a lot to lose. And then the individuals who were louder, more disruptive and, in many ways, more effective at drawing attention to their concerns were immediately castigated by authorities. They were cordoned off, pepper-sprayed, thrown in jail.

The switch has been built. Maybe you trust Barack Obama not to throw that switch, and maybe you trust George Bush not to throw that switch, but as we look towards the future, we see inequality becoming more and more acute. We're seeing more and more protests against cops and this kind of thing. We're also seeing more and more natural disasters. We're seeing more and more environmental insecurity.

You have this response of angry young people, with a war going on in Vietnam, a poverty program that was insufficient, and police brutality.

Workers are not being exploited. But if their share of growth doesn't increase, this could be a potential cause of social tension worldwide.

There are many countries in the world that when they reached the middle-income stage, they witnessed serious structural problems such as growth stagnation, a widening wealth gap and increasing social unrest.

If you have extremes of haves and have-nots where the gap keeps growing, the have-nots group together and create social disorder, as they can't see a way out of their situation.

First of all, no candidate is going to win by catering to the alleged Occupy Wall Street vote.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the tactics of the Occupy Wall Street movement, it's easy to understand the inspiration for its anger as well as its impatience.

I have been unsure, from the start, what the Occupy movement was all about, although I did suspect that it was just fatuous, anti-enterprise, left-wingery.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous and secretive economic and political force in America.

What you're seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they're directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.

Revolutions break out when opposite parties, the rich and the poor, are equally balanced, and there is little or nothing between them.

It is not the difficulty of the problem which we have; it is the fact that the rich people of this country -- and by rich people I mean the super-rich -- will not allow us to solve the problems, or rather the one little problem that is afflicting this country, because in order to cure all of our woes it is necessary to scale down the big fortunes, that we may scatter the wealth to be shared by all of the people.

History shows that when you have continuing income inequality it is an invitation to class conflict.

What is this War on Poverty? Money is going to people in Chicago who are against me.

…of all the causes of seditions and changes in the Republic, there is none greater than the excessive wealth of a few subjects, and the extreme poverty of the majority.

The Occupy movement is - it was a big surprise.

In both Russia and the U.S., there are a very small number of very, very rich people, and then there are a lot of people who don't have anything. The less inequality you have in a society, the more social peace you have. It's kind of a no-brainer.

In Mexico, wealth and poverty live next to each other and are cordial with each other - in my experience.

Rising inequality is not a law of nature - it's not even a law of economics. It is a consequence of political and economic arrangements, and those arrangements can be changed.

You are not going to lift everybody out of poverty through the kindness of wealthy people.

At the start of the second decade of the 21st century, young people all over the world are demonstrating against a variety of issues ranging from economic injustice and massive inequality to drastic cuts in education and public services. These demonstrations have and currently are being met with state-sanctioned violence and an almost pathological refusal to hear their demands.

When I see the mostly young people of Occupy Wall Street - a mixture of the bored, the nihilistic, the seekers of excitement, the left-wing true believers, the confused idealists and those hoping to engage in violence - railing against the rich capitalists on Wall Street, I get worried. Because the hatred they express toward the rich is similar to that expressed against the rich by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. Of course, these people are not comparable to those killers. But class hatred must lead to bad things. That is why President Obama is playing with fire with his attacks on the rich.

I believe strongly that Occupy Wall Street had such limits because the local authorities were able to enforce, basically in our imaginations, an image of what proper civil disobedience is - one that is simply ineffective.

While economic development [in Egypt] made a few people rich, it left many more worse off. As people felt less and less free, they also felt less and less provided for.