Walter Benjamin Quotes

When I find too many puzzles about the way explanations are given about why there is inequality - why people who work the hardest in the world end up being the poorest - I can't just sit back and not try to understand why the gaps between people are increasing, or why there are so many homeless and hungry people in the world.

Those who produce should have, but we know that those who produce the most - that is, those who work hardest, and at the most difficult and most menial tasks, have the least.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

We spend more on cows than the poor.

I do not believe in widening the income gap between rich and poor, and my life's work in the inner city of Detroit demonstrates that far more than any sound bite.

I'm concerned about - the oppression of the poor.

No city in Italy contains so many miserable beggars, and no town in the world so many blind.

If you've seen one city slum you've seen them all.

I didn't believe one man should have so much services and another man should have none.

Hunger could not exist but through violation of economic laws and fundamental principles of social justice.

The burning issue of our time is the growing inequality in income and wealth in our country.

There is sometimes a tendency to assume that everyone in this great country has adequate housing. But when you go to certain places, certain neighborhoods, both urban and rural, you find out that's not the case, and I think we have to do much more.

Economic inequality is not about food stamps and homeless shelters. It is about being a devotee of social justice and equality.

There is no excuse for inaction in the face of economic injustice.

We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.

Now some folks say that we should be glad for what we have. Tell me, would you be happy in Village Ghetto Land?

There is no peace in poverty

How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion.

Poverty is curable, but it’s just not done, because it's not profitable. And that is the kind of violence that's perpetuated on humanity.

Economic growth without social progress lets the great majority of the people remain in poverty, while a privileged few reap the benefits of rising abundance.

I was out there for 12 days. There are more beggars in Soho than there are in Kabul.

There can be no peace as long as there is grinding poverty, social injustice, inequality, oppression, environmental degradation, and as long as the weak and small continue to be trodden by the mighty and powerful.

Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soulless army of human prey.

We live in the richest country in the world. There's plenty and to spare for no man, woman, or child to be in want. And in addition to this our country was founded on what should have been a great, true principle - the freedom, equality, and rights of each individual. Huh! And what has come of that start? There are corporations worth billions of dollars - and hundreds of thousands of people who don't get to eat.

It takes a lot of weapons to do good works (as Richard the Lionhearted could have told us). And this is not just a Somali problem. We have poverty and deprivation in our own country. Try standing unarmed on a street corner in Compton handing out twenty-dollar bills and see how long you last.