Arne Duncan Quotes

Disparity is Australia's worst social problem. Thousands of lives are slowly being crushed, while billions are wasted on thousands of little initiatives trying to 'close the gap.'

We need a more holistic approach in which we take account of society's most vulnerable sectors. We shouldn't just do broad averaging of country statistics but rather we need to disaggregate the data to determine where the resources are most needed. In most cases, it's usually the reverse: those who are most marginalized - minorities and rural and remote communities - get the least attention and money.

You have to be interested in inequality. The issue of inequality and that of poverty are not separable.

Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself.

You grow up in America and you're told from day one, 'This is the land of opportunity.' That everybody has an equal chance to make it in this country. And then you look at places like Harlem, and you say, 'That is absolutely a lie.'

We live in a very unequal society.

The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.

I think we've made tremendous progress on racism. We've even made progress on war. We've made almost no progress on poverty.

Inequality doesn't create unhappiness.

Your poverty is my shame.

If I wrote in Michael Harrington's time, roughly 50 years later when he published 'The Other America', I'd still be writing about poverty and also entrenched racial injustice.

The idea of a world where all people are alike - in wealth or in anything else - is a fantasy for the stupid.

Inequality is inextricably linked with distribution of land and natural resources.

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

Everywhere there is inequality, everywhere there is division, and I worry about it. I think everybody does.

Crimes increase as education, opportunity, and property decrease. Whatever spreads ignorance, poverty and, discontent causes crime.... Criminals have their own responsibility, their own share of guilt, but they are merely the hand.... Whoever interferes with equal rights and equal opportunities is in some real degree, responsible for the crimes committed in the community.

Reducing the economic gap may be impossible without also addressing the gap in empathy.

You need to look at inequality as a typical condition of modern society.

We live in a country where a small number of people have incredible wealth and power. America has more income and wealth inequality than any other major country.

America is a country that would rather talk about race than class.

Habitat has opened up unprecedented opportunities for me to cross the chasm that separates those of us who are free, safe, financially secure, well fed and housed, and influential enough to shape our own destiny from our neighbors who enjoy few, if any, of these advantages of life.

The children of the poor are so apt to look as if the rich would have been over-blest with such! Alas for the angel capabilities, interrupted so soon with care, and with after life so sadly unfulfilled.

When I find too many puzzles about the way explanations are given about why there is inequality - why people who work the hardest in the world end up being the poorest - I can't just sit back and not try to understand why the gaps between people are increasing, or why there are so many homeless and hungry people in the world.

There can be no rule of God in the present state of iniquitous inequalities in which a few roll in riches and the masses do not get enough to eat.

You learn about equality in history and civics, but you find out life is not really like that.