John Smith Quotes

This America has been the country of greed rather than the country of need.

Things do go wrong. Not everyone benefits from the capitalist dream.

What we call real estate--the solid ground to build a house on--is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.

Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty. As millionaires increase, pauperism grows. The more millionaires, the more paupers

All down history, nine-tenths of mankind have been grinding corn for the remaining one-tenth, been paid with the husks, and bidden to thank God they had the husks.

We oppose monopoly, the tendency of which is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few.

The world has grown rich and refined, but chiefly by the efforts of those who themselves continue poor and ignorant.

The wealthiest in this country have never had it so good. They want more, and more, and more, and more, and they don’t care how many children they have to step on to get it..

This country is very good at creating wealth, but not very good at distributing it.

When I was confronted with just the bare facts of poverty and inequality in America, it always disturbed and confused me.

White folks' greed runs a world in need.

The American way of life, as I see it, is really the American way of death. Everything is determined by greed and the insatiable desire to be the richest and most powerful. And that desire is limitless.

Power is every stealing from the many to the few.

I was just very interested in the American frontier and the growth of capitalism - those enormous fortunes that were being made, more often than not, on the blood of poor people, black people, Indian people. They were the ones who paid very dearly for those great fortunes.

Everything the working class has been told to do, the rich do not do. That is my message.

The more dynamic the capitalistic expansion, the greater the disparity. It is from the disparity that we are going to get all the political upheaval for the next few years.

The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred. There are so many of us for one job it matters little if 146 of us are burned to death.

If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.

We practically own everything in the Philippines.

Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.

The fundamental evil of the world arose from the fact that the good Lord has not created money enough.

Property is organized robbery.

The man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day.

When the producers of 'Why Poverty?' came to me to do a film about poverty in the United States, I asked if I could do a film about wealth instead. I tend to make films about perpetrators, rather than victims.