Henry George Quotes

Humanity can not be made equal by declarations on paper. Unless the material conditions for equality exist

The issue of wealth inequality is ... the great moral issue of our time.

I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.

Everyone has an equal right to inequality.

As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest.

We’ve taken care not to penalize the wealthy but we have to redistribute some income …It is through reform that we can obtain fairness in the modern world…A reformed welfare state is the only way to obtain social justice.

We hold the view that all men are created equal." Now, what did they mean by that? Did they mean, my friends, to say that all men were created equal and that that meant that any one man was born to inherit $10 billion and that another child was to be born to inherit nothing? Did that mean, my friends, that someone would come into this world without having had an opportunity, of course, to have hit one lick of work, should be born with more than it and all of its children and children's children could every dispose of, but that another one would have to be born into a life of starvation?

There is no justice in social justice, and there is no equality in social equality.

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

The MLK Shabbat Suppers focused on the theme of educational inequity, which Dr. King considered inextricably linked to the struggle for equality and justice.

An imbalance between the rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

…an enormous Proportion of Property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the Rights, and destructive of the Common Happiness of Mankind…

Why did the world ever become so unequal?

Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.

Is the great working class oppressed? Yes, undoubtedly it is. God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little.

Excessive economic and social disparity between individuals and peoples of the one human race is a source of scandal and militates against social justice, equity, human dignity, as well as social and international peace.

The evil inequities and oppression of every kind which afflict millions of men and women today openly contradict Christ's Gospel and cannot leave the conscience of any Christian indifferent.

Men are made by nature unequal. It is vain, therefore, to treat them as if they were equal.

So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings, goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury, and make sharper the contest between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.

Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.

This society cannot go forward, the way we have been going forward, where the gap between the rich and the poor keeps growing.

It is futile to speak of liberty as long as economic slavery exists … poverty is slavery!

Liberty and equality are not only destructive to the morals, but to the happiness of society.

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.

Inequality is bad for everyone, not just the middle class and the poor.