Anatole France Quotes

It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.

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

We are undemocratic, then, in our religion, as is proved by our efforts to “raise” the poor.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

The rich don’t want the poor to get ahead of them.

When I was a young fellow I was very much disturbed by there being some people with lots of money and lots of people with no money.

There are no great lords who possess everything and a herd of people who have nothing

God help the rich, the poor can look after themselves

The poor developed an envy and an extreme jealousy, born of the realization that they are as worthy, or even more worthy than the wealthy, and are nonetheless afflicted with poverty, hunger, misery, and contempt.

The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich.

The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

It's the rich you can terrorize. The poor have nothing to lose.

You cannot sift out the poor from the community. The poor are indispensable to the rich.

The rich swell up with pride, the poor from hunger.

The forces in a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

The poor are prevented from thinking by the discipline of others, the rich by their own.

I'm still a communist in the sense that I don't believe the world will survive with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer - I think that the pressures will get so tremendous that the social contract will just come apart.

My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor.

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

Allow not the abject to rule over and dominate them who are noble and worthy of honour, and suffer not the high-minded to be at the mercy of the contemptible and worthless, for this is what We observed upon Our arrival in the City (Constantinople), and to it We bear witness. We found among its inhabitants some who were possessed of an affluent fortune and lived in the midst of excessive riches, whilst others were in dire want and abject poverty. This ill beseemeth thy sovereignty, and is unworthy of thy rank…. strive thou to rule with equity among men

Revolutions break out when opposite parties, the rich and the poor, are equally balanced, and there is little or nothing between them.

The needs of the poor take priority over the desires of the rich

Society is composed of two great classes-those who have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.

Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones or inhabitants of different planets ... the rich and the poor.