John Niven Quotes

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

We have two American flags always; one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it, it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it, it means danger, revolution.

Economic chasm between people is something that is of interest to me. And something that I used to write about even as a child. It's something I've revisited a few times in my writings.

If you have extremes of haves and have-nots where the gap keeps growing, the have-nots group together and create social disorder, as they can't see a way out of their situation.

The present assault upon capital is but the beginning. It will be but a stepping stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich.

The "have nots" outnumber the "haves." No wonder the ruling class of every country grows more and more alarmed.

When the economy prospers, but ordinary people do not, it is only a matter of time before there is a social explosion.

It would be a dreadful calamity to see the nation divided into two parties, one containing the bulk of the property owners and conservative people, the other the bulk of the wageworkers and the less prosperous people generally; each party insisting on demanding much that is wrong, and each party sullen and angered by real and fancied grievances..

We cannot continue to have the upper class wealty getting richer and richer, the middle class shrinking and 43 million living in poverty.

As recognized since ancient times, the coexistence of very rich and very poor leads to two possibilities, neither a happy one. The rich can rule alone, disenfranchising or even enslaving the poor, or the poor can rise up and confiscate the wealth of the rich.

As the haves and have-nots split further and further apart, destabilization ultimately leads to revolution, not evolution. If we're playing the evolution vs. revolution game, we are closer to revolution than we are to evolution in my concept.

This country's going to have a revolution if something doesn't happen the haves and have - nots.

The chasm between rich and poor is becoming larger, and I think it's interesting terrain to talk about and expose.

This society cannot go forward, the way we have been going forward, where the gap between the rich and the poor keeps growing. It's not politically viable; it's not morally right; it's just not going to happen.

I think greed is a critical problem - the gap between the poor and the rich. The gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent.

The rich become richer and the poor become poorer is a cry heard throughout the whole civilized world.

Occupy Wall Street was a disorganized movement without a clear focus and power base - essential in any successful revolution - but the message was clear: the divisions between those who are fortunate enough to enjoy city living as opposed to those who find it unbearable are too wide.

The economy is not governed with the bottom half in mind.

To judge from all Communist papers, magazines and brochures, and from all public assemblies, one might even surmise that a revolt of the poor peasants in Western Europe might break out at any moment!

I know people socially who live in countries where the wealth gap is more extreme than it is in America, and they live with full-time security. They live with the threat of getting kidnapped, or they live with the threat of people invading their homes.

The rich are richer, and the poor are poorer, in the city than elsewhere; and, as a rule, the greater are the riches of the rich and the poverty of the poor.

This country is going to implode, or put another way, it's going to get crushed under the weight of poverty. You can't have one percent of the people who own and control more wealth than the other 90 percent of the population.

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.

I'm interested in illuminating the enormous disparity between vast poverty and the tiny upper class... This vast inequity is unfair by definition, and I am interested in illuminating that and, where possible, changing that.

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