Basil of Caesarea Quotes

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association-the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

The measure of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, but whether, as Franklin Roosevelt said, we provide enough for those who have too little.

It's not enough to have economic growth. You have to distribute wealth throughout all of society.

For the good of Spain, I should like there to be rather fewer rich people and rather fewer poor.

There's enough wealth in the world that no one should go without.

It (land value taxation) guarantees that no one dispossess fellow citizens by obtaining a disproportionate share of what nature provides for humanity.

If you take from the most wealthy and give to the least wealthy, it's good. It tries to balance out.

Measures should be enacted which, without violating the rights of property, would reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort.

If everyone would take only according to his needs and would leave the surplus to the needy, no one would be rich, no one poor, no one in misery.

People who get rich early should help the rest get rich.

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.

However imperfectly, subsidies for the poor do actually reduce hunger, ease suffering and create opportunity, while subsidies for the rich result in more private jets and yachts. Would we rather subsidize opportunity or yachts? Which kind of subsidies deserve more scrutiny?

There is nothing in this world which men desire and struggle for, and that is good for them, of which there is not enough for everybody.

Maybe we ought to have a world in which things are divided between people kind of fairly.

We need to have the social investments by which to quote unquote distribute some of that wealth.

We absolutely have to restrain concentrations of wealth in industry from spoiling the situation for everybody.

Government has a responsibility to the have-nots.

The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment to those excluded from the appropriation.

It is not enough, for example, to acknowledge and respect every man's right to the means of subsistence if we do not strive to the best of our ability for a sufficient supply of what is necessary for his sustenance

In a morally adjusted economy ... the rich should not get richer if the poor get poorer.

Distribution of the wealth of the world is something for which no one sees a practical solution

Prohibiting Poverty

Abolish Poverty

In a good society, those in the middle and at the bottom ought to benefit significantly from economic growth. When the country prospers, everybody should prosper.

No doubt we have to have bigger projects, bigger industries, basic industries, but it is a matter of the highest importance that we look to the common man, the weakest element in the society.