Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.

I have tried to suggest that injustice is not necessary economic -- that the economics can work, and has often worked, when the constituency for it is animated. The politics of equality -- that is a little harder.

I always go with the dictionary definition of feminism, which is just social, political and economic equality for women. And that's kind of a strategic thing on my part, because I think that it's the hardest definition to argue with. You know, who doesn't want that? Everyone wants equality for women.

My long struggles as a soldier of the Chinese Revolution have forced me to realize the necessity of facing hard facts. There will be neither peace, nor hope, nor future for any of us unless we honestly aim at political, social and economic justice for all peoples of the world, great and small.

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

I'm interested in illuminating the enormous disparity between vast poverty and the tiny upper class... This vast inequity is unfair by definition, and I am interested in illuminating that and, where possible, changing that.

Our goal is a classless society.

When people are educated, class distinction disappears.

Unless you’re at the very top, you need a more equitable economy.

I don't believe we need to choose between addressing economic issues and addressing issues of social or racial justice.

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

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.

I am for lifting everyone off the social bottom. In fact, I am for doing away with the social bottom altogether.

I think this is a moment of a lot of possibilities, and openings. Occupy and the 99% movement are really going to break through, and we are going to create a new economy, an economy that we need that works for everyone. Where everyone works, everyone counts and everyone contributes.

We have a lot of inequality, and I'm not a one-issue candidate, because I don't think this is a one-issue country. So I want to knock down all the barriers that stand in the way of people getting ahead and staying ahead.

I've been a witness to unfairness in society all my life. To the conditions under which my mother worked all her life, working in an industrial weaving shed in the north of England. And it has been this feature of unfairness that has motivated me in all of my political thinking.

Social justice rests on the hate towards those that enjoy a comfortable position, namely, upon envy.

People start to talk about post-racist, post-feminist. What does that mean? We're clearly not post either. Would you say post-democracy? Clearly we haven't reached true democracy yet.

Economic issues are a subset of social justice. Social justice is unimaginable without economic justice. Isn't that obvious?

Remember, until the 1970s, the spread of democracy has always been accompanied by the decline of inequality. The more democratic our societies have been, the more equal they have been becoming. Now we have the reverse tendency. The spread of democracy now is very much accompanied by the increase in inequality.

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

I started out young and idealistic, and it was all about social justice and fair distribution of resources. I didn't understand why everybody couldn't be equally prosperous.

Everybody can't have the life of a normal, average American person in India - they can't. So, it's about egalitarianism. It's about sharing things more equally. It's about access to natural resources.

Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.