Lionel Trilling Quotes

Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

No harm is done by the possession of Luxury by some people if only at the same time EVERYBODY HAS ENOUGH. The wrong incurred by the rich toward the poor lies solely in the fact that while they revel, the poor starve

Luxury may possibly contribute to give bread to the poor; but if there were no luxury, there would be no poor.

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

The central issue of our time remains the fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer.

The needs of the poor take priority over the desires of the rich

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

Poor men's words have little weight.

Choose equality …. Inequality has the natural and necessary effect … of materializing our upper class, vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class.

God help the rich, the poor can look after themselves

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.

The world belongs to the wealthy, and nowhere is this injustice more apparent than in the workplace.

Everybody in politics claims to want to get everybody out of poverty. What's the opposite? Wealth. And what is often criticized by the left? Wealth.

The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor.

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.

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.

Men who are scandalized at the lack of freedom in Russia do not ask themselves how real is liberty among the poor, the weak, and the ignorant in capitalist society.

Class is real. It can't be faked.

Our family's fortune is growing faster than ever. We're a part of a small number of American families that own most of the country's wealth. But having so much in the hands of so few can't be good for America.

When inequality gets too extreme, then it becomes useless for growth, and it can even become bad because it tends to lead to high perpetuation of inequality over time and low mobility.

It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.

Let some people get rich first.

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

Too often, wealthy people born on third base blithely criticize the poor for failing to hit home runs. The advantaged sometimes perceive empathy as a sign of muddle-headed weakness rather than as a marker of civilization.

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