Kofi Annan Quotes

I didn't believe one man should have so much services and another man should have none.

There are two separate systems in America. One for the privileged, and one for everybody else.

We cannot rebuild the American Dream here at home by catering to the voices of the privileged and powerful.

I'm not interested in defending the position of those who already have money, power and privilege.

In a world of increasing inequality, the legitimacy of institutions that give precedence to the property rights of 'the Haves' over the human rights of 'the Have Nots' is inevitably called into serious question.

We spend more on cows than the poor.

I'm concerned about - the oppression of the poor.

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

The Privileged and the People form Two Nations.

We can have a democracy or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.

Every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add… artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society -- the farmers, mechanics, and laborers -- who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government.

Ask of politicians the end for which laws were originally designed, and they will answer that the laws were designed as a protection for the poor and weak against the oppression of the rich and powerful. But surely no pretense can be so ridiculous

The great can protect themselves, but the poor and humble require the arm and shield of the law.

Liberty is impossible if 36 thousand families at the top of the economic pyramid get as much income as 12 million families at the bottom.

Rugged individualism really means the regimentation of the many for the benefit of the few.

I'm here to speak for those who say the American Dream isn't working for them, because I know it isn't. I'm here to say it's not your fault: the ruling class... has failed you.

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

Ordinary people understand that the rich and powerful bully the poor and meek.

I think, unfortunately, we've always lived in a world of massive inequality: inequality between the haves and the have-nots, inequality between men and women that not only exists temporally but geographically as well.

Once any group in society stands in a relatively deprived position in relation to other groups, it is genuinely deprived.

So long as there are nobles and commoners, the wealthy and the poor, those with power will be heard, and those without ignored. That's the world.

History could claw upward as well as down. The powerful could be deafened by the cries of the poor.

One thing that you consistently see everywhere is that the poor and the under-represented are always the ones who are going to suffer the most and get the short end of the stick.

Such hath it been--shall be--beneath the sun The many still must labour for the one.

Of course all such conclusions about appropriate actions against the rich and powerful are based on a fundamental flaw: This is us, and that is them. This crucial principle, deeply embedded in Western culture, suffices to undermine even the most precise analogy and the most impeccable reasoning.