Henry David Thoreau Quotes

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

The ignorance of the working class and the superior intelligence of the privileged class are superstitions fostered by ... universities and churches, and by all the centers of privilege.

It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.

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

In every commercial state, notwithstanding any pretension to equal rights, the exaltation of a few must depress the many.

Social inequality … divides society into two classes -- the wage-slaves and the grabbers of capital

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

The defeats and victories for the people at the top aren't defeats and victories for the people at the bottom.

The middle class is always a firm champion of equality when it concerns a class above it; but it is its inveterate foe when it concerns elevating a class below it.

The Privileged and the People form Two Nations.

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

One of the striking features of the early episodes of AMC's hit television show 'Mad Men' is the similarities in the lifestyle enjoyed by the lowest paid members of Don Draper's advertising company and its wealthy partners.

Working-class people don't tend to be wooed by celebrity.

If the rabble were lopped off at one end and the aristocrats at the other, all would be well with the country.

We're leaving the House to people who either were born with a silver spoon in their mouth... or couldn't get better jobs in the first place.

Americans have so far put up with inequality because they felt they could change their status. They didn't mind others being rich, as long as they had a path to move up as well. The American Dream is all about social mobility in a sense - the idea that anyone can make it.

If my career continues along its current arc, people will probably look at me and see a writer who is obsessed with the relationship between rich and poor and with how the rich somehow or other always manage to betray the poor, even when they don't mean to.

The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too.

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

His lordship may compel us to be equal upstairs, but there will never be equality in the servants hall.

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

I think people are always going to be fascinated about the haves and have nots - about the divide between the servants and the rich families upstairs.

With 'Titanic,' you have all the first-class passengers interwoven with wonderful stories about the maids and the engineers, the people downstairs in the galleys.

The men of middling property and poor men can never be safe in a mixed representation with the men of over-grown property.

Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.