Marquis de Lafayette Quotes

… in this new and better society there must be neither rich nor poor; all will have to work. Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labor.

When you see a country take care of its people regardless of class, or how much money they make, or what color they are, that's pretty inspiring.

I've always felt that, in America, we're all equal. I don't care what you make or what kind of car you drive. You're not better than me.

I guess what I learned about myself is I'm a bit of a socialist; I want everyone on the set to get equal treatment and credit.

The social order we have built recognizes no exploitation of man by man. In our country there are no rich people to live at the expense of the workers and peasants. Just as there are no poor people living on the charity of others.

Here, no privileged orders – no factitious distinctions in society – no hereditary nobility – no royal prerogatives exist, to interpose barriers between the people, and to create distinct classifications in society. All men being considered as enjoying an equality of rights, the propriety and necessity of dispensing, without distinction, the blessings of education ….

The function of democratic living is not to lower standards but to raise those that have been too low.

There are neither mendicants no paupers as long as there are any rich people among them. Their kindness, humanity, and courtesy not only make them liberal with what they have, but cause them to possess hardly anything except in common. A whole village must be without corn before any individual can be obliged to endure privation

Destroy poverty, that source of crime, by assuring to each the satisfaction of all needs! And how difficult is this to achieve?

What most charms me [in America] is, that all the citizens are brethren.

If exclusive privileges were not granted, and if the financial system would not tend to concentrate wealth, there would be few great fortunes and no quick wealth. When the means of growing rich is divided between a greater number of citizens, wealth will also be more evenly distributed; extreme poverty and extreme wealth would be also rare.

I can explain my work to the cleaner or the president; it's all the same to me. I am very communist in this way.

I want everyone to work to be equal!

I do not want two classes of citizens in this country. I want everybody to prosper. That's going to be a top priority.

In America, no other distinction between man and man had ever been known but that of persons in office exercising powers by authority of the laws, and private individuals. Among these last, the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar.

Abolish Poverty

The battle to right the wrongs of income inequality is not – and cannot be – just a union issue. It is an issue for every American, union or non-union, white or of color, young or senior, straight or gay, income inequality is a battle for the very heart and soul of the nation.

There is much in American society which I admire, but I have long held the view that the absence of an effective safety net in that country means that too many needy citizens fall by the wayside.

We will not rest until this war [on poverty] is won.

Here everyone is his own master. Civil liberty places all inhabitants on an equal footing. The humble cannot be oppressed by the mighty, nor the poor by the rich.

The domestic policy of the Democratic Party is to do away with privilege as between individuals, and to secure the cooperation of all citizens for the common good; its standard of success is not the wealth of a few individuals, but the welfare of the people as a whole.

It is right to be forward in the defense of the poor; no system that is not just as between rich and poor can hope to survive.

For over twenty years, Homeboy Industries has chosen to stand with those on the margins and those whose burdens are more than they can bear; it stands with the poor and the powerless, with the easily-despised and the readily-left out.

I am a socialist; of course I am a socialist. To hold a vision that society can be fundamentally different, to believe that all people can be equal - that is not a new idea.

Worrying about the poor is one thing. To contend that equality is necessary for growth is an altogether different and more radical idea.