George Burns Quotes

What kind of a society are we going to have if it consists of highly paid people doing high-value-added work -- and masses of unemployed?

The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare.

It's hard for me to understand how working-class people support themselves.

If you repress rather than unlock the potential of large groups of Americans, what's that going to do to our economy? It's going to contract, not expand.

This country has far more problems than it deserves and far more solutions than it applies.

The youth of Taiwan not only have to face the harsh reality of low wages and high commodity and housing prices, but due to the lack of employment opportunities, many young people are forced to leave their home towns to search for jobs in the cities.

The working poor is a growing population in this country.

The great scientist was offered the Presidency of the young state of Israel:] I am deeply moved ..., though also sad and abashed that it is impossible for me to accept this offer. Since all my life I have been dealing with the world of objects. I have neither the natural ability nor the experience necessary to deal with human beings and to carry out official functions.

The economic and social inferiority of women is responsible for prostitution.

I was a business man. When they elected me, it took me two years to learn about how government ran.

The whole contention lies between those that labor for a living and those that do not.

The Latin American people have become fed up with the 500 year siesta and the lack of opportunity. So they come to the United States. But that is because the leaders of their countries do not do anything to improve the situation…. When Mexican President Fox took office he observed that over half the Mexican population was living in poverty and that he was unlikely to make significant changes during his remaining term in office. That was a sophisticated way of saying to the Mexicans, “Go to the United States!”

The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.

If anyone’s declared class warfare, it’s the people who inhabit the top rungs of big corporations and Wall Street … They have declared it on average workers.

Jobless Men Keep Going We Can’t Take Care of Our Own

… the struggling masses

But the way I look at it is just about every profession in our society: There's some lasting effects. It's just the way that our society is set up. People have to work.

All the poor white people, all the poor black people, all the Hispanics, they're in the same boat. They've got no economic opportunities.

To hunger for use and to go unused is the worst hunger of all.

The people who are unemployed want to do the work, but the system is such a catastrophic failure that it cannot bring together idle hands and work. This is all hailed as a great success, and it is a great success - for a very small sector of the population.

I have two college degrees, but the only way I could make a living was by showing kids how to put a ball in a hole.

It's not that we don't have talent in our country; the talent is, in fact, not required today.

I see the strongest and the smartest men who have ever lived... and these men are pumping gas and waiting tables.

We are all such a waste of our potential, like three-way lamps using one-way bulbs.

I will be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running America.