Bill Gates Quotes

Inherited wealth, that is not what America is based upon.

I don't think equality is intrinsically valuable, meaning in and of itself. I'm not against inequality... if Bill Gates gets another hundred million dollars, it's no skin off my nose.

The world is not a meritocracy, as much as we may like to pretend that it is. And we have a long way to go before we really reward people based on their own merit.

The big lie is that the people who make a lot of money were the only ones that worked hard.

My feeling is, having lived in different classes, that people want equality of opportunity... that's the thing that makes me despair: the idea that people aren't given equality of opportunity.

Western democracies exalt the ideal of social equality, but our economic system arguably emerged from 16th-century Calvinism, a religion whose members believed that God showed favor by bestowing wealth and other forms of success on what they called 'the chosen.'

I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.' No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own - nobody.

The superrich should pay higher taxes in order to restore the inclusive society that I grew up in.

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions — it only guarantees equality of opportunity.

There never can be equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human plan contains varied talents and differing degrees of industry and thrift, but ours ought to be a country free from the great blotches of distressed poverty.

It says anybody can make it, because we're all on a level playing field. But we're not on a level playing field. That 's precisely the point, and that's what the rich don't want to look at. They don't want to recognize that they're not producing wealth at all. They're hoarding wealth. That's different.

The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well.

The 1970s were the height of social mobility. College was accessible. My grandfather was a poor immigrant who went to a public school in Ohio, and my father went to Harvard. That wasn't unusual. There was a feeling that anything was possible and you didn't have to be born into money to have a successful life. Now, people don't believe in the idea that anything is possible. We have more inequality than we've had ever before and a greater concentration of wealth in the hands of a few.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

For many people, and particularly in communities of color, the basic bargain of America - that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can share in the nation's prosperity - has become a raw deal. That's what President Obama's opportunity agenda is all about - making good on our country's half of the basic bargain.

I don't campaign for the end of the aristocracy or the upper classes; I don't really want to destroy anything at all. I just want more plurality.

Every soul deserves a shot at a Cadillac, but not everyone should be guaranteed a Cadillac.

There are great challenges before you, from the overwhelming nature of climate change to the unfairness of an economy that excludes so many from our collective wealth, and the changes necessary to build a more inclusive and generous Canada. I believe in you.

Republicans many times can't get the words 'equality of opportunity' out of their mouths. Their lips do not form that way.

Yes, look, social class is definitely an issue in Britain, it is definitely an issue and I think that most people across the country would sympathise with the idea that there are lots of people with talent and ability all across this country who want to make more of themselves and part of the responsibility of government is to make that happen.

Mitt Romney subscribes to the cynical logic that says the American dream belongs to some of us but not all of us.

We are united in the hope that every individual will someday enjoy at least the intellectual privileges we have had, if not always the material advantages.

Unless the great majority of Americans not only have, but believe they have, a fair chance, the better American future will be dangerously compromised.

Conservatives often say that we should care not about equality of outcomes but about equality of opportunity.

I don't believe that the American dream should be reserved for those who are born into the elite or somehow have been given an advantage over others. My growing-up experience is probably the most important thing that guides my priorities and my work today.