Charlotte Perkins Gilman Quotes

The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.

If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.

It has so happened in all ages of the world that some have labored, and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits.

One must denounce the economic, financial, and social mechanisms and structures that are manipulated by the rich and powerful for their own benefit at the expense of the poor

Ordinary people understand that the rich and powerful bully the poor and meek.

You can go back 150 years and literally find the same people saying the same thing in the same way. "If we have to pay you more, it will be bad for you." And that's because saying that is a much more polite way of saying, "I'm rich, you're poor, and I would prefer to keep it that way."

Such hath it been--shall be--beneath the sun The many still must labour for the one.

People have so manipulated the concept of freedom that it finally boils down to the right of the stronger and richer to take from the weaker and poorer whatever they still have.

In a world of increasing inequality, the legitimacy of institutions that give precedence to the property rights of 'the Haves' over the human rights of 'the Have Nots' is inevitably called into serious question.

In poor countries, the rich and powerful crush the poor and powerless.

It means that the men who hold the means of life control our lives, and, because we workingmen have tried to get some measure of justice, some measure of betterment, they deny the right of the human being to associate with his fellow.

Racism, in the first place, is a weapon used by the wealthy to increase the profits they bring in by paying Black workers less for their work.

I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating... because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition.

People say 'what do you mean' when you talk about 'bringing down civilization.' What I really mean is depriving the rich of the ability to steal from the poor and depriving the powerful of the ability to destroy the planet. That's what I really mean.

The man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day.

Whenever people with money have power over people with less money, you have the potential for exploitation.

Anyone here own 4 suits? Three suits? Even 2 suits? Well J. P. Morgan has over 100 suits, each one stolen off the back of a working man.

The few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons.

The worker is always in the sun while the landowner is always in the shade.

The strongest bulwark of the capitalistic system is the ignorance of its victims.

The workingmen have been exploited all the way up and down the line by employers, landlords, everybody.

Poor whites have been pitted against poor blacks to assuage the conscience of the affluent.

... an apathetic indifferent meat in a sandwich that has an ever thinning slice of maniacal Plutocratic Gluttony on top and an ever thickening slice of rotten vermin rottening at the bottom.

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.

There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets.