Thomas Friedman Quotes

Franklin Roosevelt said the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance to those who have much; it is whether we provide enough to those who have too little. This reconciliation package fails that test as well.

It is because of capitalism that we can pay for services to poor people that we don't even know.

While capitalist countries have more inequality - they also have more wealth overall.

The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near poor back on front of the American agenda.

I believed - and believe - that capitalism works best for a freedom-loving society, that it brings more prosperity to more people than any other social-economic system, but that somehow we have to take care of people.

Haiti's economy cannot be built by and benefit just a privileged few. It must be built by and benefit all Haitians.

History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.

Capitalism has its weaknesses. But it is capitalism that ended the stranglehold of the hereditary aristocracies, raised the standard of living for most of the world and enabled the emancipation of women.

What if capitalism is unsustainable, and socialism is impossible?

I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.

Alleviating poverty would be the Bank's overarching objective.

Trickle-down theories do not address the legitimate aspirations of the poor. We must lift those at the bottom so that poverty is erased from the dictionary of modern India.

We cannot run a democracy without a strong middle class.

Reducing poverty is in our own interest.

The best social programs we've had in this country are those that have united the middle class and the poor.

A New Dealer regrets poverty and deplores the fact that it is necessary for society to slough off its misfits as an individual sheds his impurities and his diseases. But New Dealers believe that human want and human distress should be prevented or at least ameliorated.

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.

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

Rising inequality is not a law of nature - it's not even a law of economics. It is a consequence of political and economic arrangements, and those arrangements can be changed.

You are not going to lift everybody out of poverty through the kindness of wealthy people.

Poverty can't be eliminated by punishing people who've escaped poverty.

One of the eternal conflicts out of which life is made up is that between the effort of every man to get the most he can for his services, and that of society, disguised under the name of capital, to get his services for the least possible return.

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.

We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have-nots. We must always be a nation of haves and soon-to-haves.

Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.