Henry David Thoreau Quotes

The poor have the same basic pleasures as the rich, and the rich will always resent it.

I do care about not 99 percent or 95 percent. I care about the very rich and the very poor. I care about 100 percent of America.

I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men, and where the profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent equality of property.

The law ... allows rich as well as poor to sleep under bridges.

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

The poor have to labour in the face of the majestic equality of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.

To be prosperous is not to be superior, and should form no barrier between men. Wealth ought not to secure the prosperous the slightest consideration.

If Eleanor Roosevelt has her way, how are we going to tell the rich from the poor?

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.

Unless you’re at the very top, you need a more equitable economy.

No man should be made poor so another man can be made rich.

Well, as you know, there are many things in life that are not fair, that wealthy people can afford and poor people can’t. But I don’t believe that the federal government should take action to try to make these opportunities exactly equal, when there is a moral factor involved.

Economic inequality is not about food stamps and homeless shelters. It is about being a devotee of social justice and equality.

One thing that is clearly not maximized by free markets is equality. I am talking not about that pale substitute for equality known as equality of opportunity but about equality itself.

I don't think of anyone as rich or poor.

The French don't think everyone should have the same bank balance, but they're offended by extremes of inequality.

I don't think equality is intrinsically valuable, meaning in and of itself. I'm not against inequality... if Bill Gates gets another hundred million dollars, it's no skin off my nose.

I consider the homeless just as important as the richest of the rich.

Poor people know poor people, and rich people know rich people. It is one of the few things La Rochefoucauld did not say, but then La Rochefoucauld never lived in the Bronx.

The patience and forbearance of the poor are among the strongest bulwarks of the rich.

Anyone who's been poor and gets rich is stalked by guilt and fear. Guilt because you know it isn't fair, that life hasn't changed for everyone

Rich man and poor move side by side toward the limit of death.

You are in favour of the common people?” said Dragon mildly. The common people?” said Vimes. “They’re nothing special. They’re no different from the rich and powerful except they’ve got no money or power. But the law should be there to balance things up a bit. So I suppose I’ve got to be on their side.

A poor woman from Manchester, on being taken to the seaside, is said to have expressed her delight on seeing for the first time something of which there was enough for everybody.