Winnie Mandela Quotes

Disparity is Australia's worst social problem. Thousands of lives are slowly being crushed, while billions are wasted on thousands of little initiatives trying to 'close the gap.'

In a sane, civil, intelligent and moral society, you don't blame poor people for being poor.

Only the poor are forbidden to beg.

The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth.

I challenge British Muslims to accept that as strongly as they feel about Iraq or counter-terrorism measures, poverty and inequality have the biggest impact on the lives of the majority of British Muslims and do the most to prevent potential being fulfilled.

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.

Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.

Since the day Martin Luther King was killed, the black middle classes have almost quadrupled, but the percentage of black children living on or below the poverty line is almost the same.

Remember, until the 1970s, the spread of democracy has always been accompanied by the decline of inequality. The more democratic our societies have been, the more equal they have been becoming. Now we have the reverse tendency. The spread of democracy now is very much accompanied by the increase in inequality.

I think we've made tremendous progress on racism. We've even made progress on war. We've made almost no progress on poverty.

There is this notion that the lives of the comfortable-off middle class don't merit being treated seriously and with compassion.

To deal with radicalism and extremism, we need to deal with economic inequality. This is what I learned from my experience in Solo and then in Jakarta.

I don't think we should stop emphasizing race because I think, you know, race is still very, very important, and we have to recognize that and continue to introduce programs to address racial inequities. But we have to widen our vision and also address the growing problems of economic class.

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

The Negro today perhaps has more political power than ever before and he is worse off than ever before. It is not votes but dollars that count in this civilization.

Leaders of the business community ... have chosen to wage a one-sided class war today in this country - a war against working people, the unemployed, the poor, the minorities, the very young and the very old. .

There is another world out there, the existence of which the Court, I suspect, either chooses to ignore or fears to recognize. And so the cancer of poverty will continue to grow.

Who takes the blame: the leader who talks of poverty but lives in luxury, or the poor who choose a leader of that type?

Why should there be such abject poverty?

Poverty is a soft pedal upon all branches of human activity.

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!”

No city in the world can honest industry be more at a discount than in this capital of the government of the people

Yet today our splendid theory of government is confronted by a great peril. We have become blind to evils that menace us. We are confronted with glutted markets and idle labor. It is a condition that makes it possible for a few men to become landlords of a proud city like this while God's poor are packed in the slums. Such a condition is not only a menace to Republican institutions, but a travesty upon the gospel of Jesus Christ.

No nation can be freer than its most oppressed, richer than its poorest, wiser than its most ignorant.

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