Richard Lamm Quotes

We are privileged. There are poor people out there. We must to do something to make them privileged.

To give aid to every poor man is far beyond the reach and power of every man. Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.

Part of the responsibility of government is to serve the needs of those that have the least among us.

Like many people, most Libertarians feel empathy and sympathy for less fortunate people. But they know you can't have perfection in a world of limited resources.

Society might have been better off without them, but we are supposed to look after the disadvantaged, and so we do it. But it doesn't help the society.

It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.

When people said Africa would change me, I didn't understand what they meant. To see the poverty in the townships, for instance, is overwhelming. I found it heart-wrenching to see young children walking barefoot and hungry in the dirt. I'm the kind of person who wants to change the world right here and now, so I got frustrated.

There's nothing wrong with the free-enterprise system. But it has to have some compassion.

Property as compared with humanity, as compared with the red blood in the American people, must take second place, not first place.

Could we do without the social safety net, without Social Security, without Medicare, without farm subsidies, without unemployment compensation, without school lunch programs, without housing assistance? Of course we could. But we would not be a civilized society and we would not be an American nation any of us would be proud of.

We could have free immigration if we did not have a welfare state. In principle I would like to see free immigration.

If it’s liberal to feed the hungry and house the homeless, you can call me a liberal. If it’s liberal to make sure a young mother can see a doctor when her baby’s sick, call me a liberal.

When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.

The boast that our country is the asylum for the oppressed in other parts of the world is very philanthropic and sentimental, but I fear that we shall before long derive little comfort from being made the almshouse and place of refuge for the poor of other countries.

if there are any German-Americans here who are so ungrateful for all the benefits they have received that they are still for the Kaiser, there is only one thing to do with them. And that is to hog-tie them, give them back the wooden shoes and the rags they landed in, and ship them back to the Fatherland.

… these bold and indigent strangers, saying as their excuse when challenged for titles, that we had solicited for colonists and they had come accordingly … [that it] was against the laws of God and nature that so much land should be idle while so many Christians wanted it to work on and to raise their bread..

It is unjust to let any starve, when we think it just to limit the wages of the poor, so as they can lay up nothing against the time of their impotency and want of work.

California must be all American or all Chinese. We are resolved that it shall be American, and are prepared to make it so.

The classical case is that of the starving man who steals a loaf of bread. That he should be allowed to go free is understandable enough; but it is less understandable that 'society's' obligation not to let him starve should devolve upon one baker chosen at random and not on society as a whole.

The states, just like the Federal government, just can’t let the poor die.

I don't think it is wrong, racist, immoral or anything, for a country to say 'we will decide what the cultural identity and the cultural destiny of this country will be and nobody else.’

History will judge societies and governments — and their institutions — not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.

It is right to be forward in the defense of the poor; no system that is not just as between rich and poor can hope to survive.

You’ve got to help people that are downtrodden and poor, and I just think that that’s part of our culture. You’ve got to help people that can’t help themselves.

There's a lack of people in power that are motivated by the idea of helping people.