Henry Rollins Quotes

Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy; those who had anything united in common terror.

The wall between rich and poor is a wall of glass which all can see.

Our society's sort of turning into a two-class system, where... most of the wealth and privileges are being concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer people. And there's the rest of us... that have to go out and work and struggle and live and die and try to find some happiness and contentment and security.

One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt probably didn't was a lot of time thinking about the people who build their pyramids, either.

There are some people who say that they’re concerned only with poverty but not inequality. But I don’t think that is a sustainable thought. A lot of poverty is, in fact, inequality because of the connection between income and capability—having adequate resources to take part in the life of the community.

In a process that had begun in the 1980s and suddenly accelerated in the early 2000s ... [t]he peaks of great wealth grew higher, rising up beyond the clouds, while the valleys of poverty sank lower into perpetual shadow. The once broad plateau of the middle class eroded away into a narrow ledge, with the white-knuckled occupants holding on for dear life.

All the United States, it is a society that is split like to the bottom, that had very poor people in the country that is one of the wealthiest countries.

Texas has arguably the most extreme separation between the well off and everyday people in the United States.

There's no question that how Johannesburg operates is what made me interested in the idea of wealth discrepancy. 'Elysium' could be a metaphor for just Jo'burg, but it's also a metaphor for the Third World and the First World. And in science fiction, separation of wealth is a really interesting idea to mess with.

About the only difference between the poor and the rich, is this, the poor suffer misery, while the rich have to enjoy it.

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

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

I don't want there to be this separation between the rich and poor. I may be part of the three percent because I've been fortunate and done well for myself, but I will never forget about the 97 percent. That was me growing up. I was so poor I dreamt about being just 'regular poor,' not 'poor, poor.'

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

The poor generally follow behavior patterns established by the rich.

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 but two families in the world … The haves and the have-nots.

... popular art has no chance of a healthy life, or, indeed, of a life at all, till we are on the way to fill up this terrible gulf between riches and poverty.

This contempt for money is a trick developed by the rich to keep the poor without it.

History shows that when you have continuing income inequality it is an invitation to class conflict.

That which in England we call the middle class is in America virtually the nation.

God help the rich, the poor can look after themselves

In this respect, higher education is now causing most of the growing inequality and strengthening class structure of the United States.

You can only choose between rich and poor. The middle class is gone.

If we wait until income inequality is much more severe, we will have a whole class of new superrich who will probably feel entitled to their wealth and will have the means to defend their interest. That's already gone far enough. We shouldn't let it become more extreme.