Clarence Dickinson Long Quotes

There is no society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create an aristocracy.

Water does tend to flow up hill toward money and power.

Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top.

The exclusive owners of property ever have been, ever will, and perhaps ever ought to be the virtual rulers of mankind

A politician that is poor is a poor politician.

There are two great enemies of thought and progress, the aristocracy of royalty and the aristocracy of gold.

Inequality [is] a social control mechanism supported by financial interests’ belief in the desirability of oligarchy.

The people who are the most powerful and have the most money sometimes don't value other people.

People don't want to have to justify their privileges; they don't want to have to justify having access to the power and resource that wealth brings. And by not talking about it, they are able to hold onto their power without being questioned, and I think that makes them feel more secure.

He who has the gold makes the rules.

The ability of the 1 percent to buy politicians and regulators is nothing new in American politics - just as inequality has been a permanent part of our economic system. This is true of virtually all political and economic systems.

'Plutocracy.' It has a perfect nuance: chilly, inaccessible, icy-rich.

I think Hollywood has a class system. The actors are like the inmates, but the truth is they're running the asylum.

Some people are at the top of the ladder, some are in the middle, still more are at the bottom, and a whole lot more don't even know there is a ladder.

I remember an article, I can't recall who by, it was after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which said that now the Wall was down, there could be no more class war. Only someone with money could ever say such a thing.

In this country there is no rank but rank mutton.

Money distorts the democratic process in a fundamental way.

The primary object of every elite, or ruling class, is to maintain its own power and privilege.

In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.

The great families have their privileges.

However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.

…empire follows the balance of property, whether lodged in one, a few, or many hands.

…property in fact generally confers power, though the possessor of it may not have much more wit than a mole or a mugwash…

The wealthy have a responsibility to invest in addressing inequality. This is especially true when constraints on others are so great.

I do not like the rich.