Mitch Landrieu Quotes

I don't campaign for the end of the aristocracy or the upper classes; I don't really want to destroy anything at all. I just want more plurality.

Inherited wealth, that is not what America is based upon.

Conservatives often say that we should care not about equality of outcomes but about equality of opportunity.

I don't believe that the American dream should be reserved for those who are born into the elite or somehow have been given an advantage over others. My growing-up experience is probably the most important thing that guides my priorities and my work today.

Our country has become the land of opportunity to those born without inheritance.

We're all about pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, et cetera - I think that's a harmful mythology, that the choices that we make and the things that we do in our lives are not connected to anything else. So I'd like to help to debunk that.

I think this country is genuinely a meritocracy.

Judge Thomas was a man who had used the system to get where he wanted to be, but then felt that everyone else should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Every soul deserves a shot at a Cadillac, but not everyone should be guaranteed a Cadillac.

It is time to return to core values, time to get back to basics, to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for the others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family - and not shuffling it off on other people and the state.

My dad has no control over who works with me. Me, me and me alone has to take responsibility for anything.

The anti-elitist values in America, I think, are very destructive to education.

It would be against all nature for all the Negroes to be either at the bottom, top, or in between. We will go where the internal drive carries us like everybody else. It is up to the individual.

We must remind Americans that the promise of opportunity remains unbroken - that every person in this great nation can succeed through hard work, courage and personal responsibility.

Democracy presumes that we're all created equal; competition proves we are not, or else every race would end in a tie.

It was a question of helping a man prepare in the way that suits him best. The theory is if you give a man responsibility for his own actions, then it is up to him to accept that responsibility.

I'm a capitalist. I'm not going to feel sympathetic to people leading a life they don't have to lead who, with effort, could maybe break out of it.

My feeling is, having lived in different classes, that people want equality of opportunity... that's the thing that makes me despair: the idea that people aren't given equality of opportunity.

What I believe unites the people of this nation, regardless of race or region or party, young or old, rich or poor, is the simple, profound belief in opportunity for all - the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead.

Liberals tend to put the onus of your success on society and conservatives on you and your family.

Everybody should have an equal chance - but they shouldn't have a flying start.

If you get so unequal that people believe they don't have a chance, that the field isn't level for them and their children, that puts democracy at risk.

I really do think the things that make our society what it is are under threat. It should be about everyone having the potential to be what they're going to be.

The notion that all human beings born into this world enter at birth into a definite social and economic classification, in which classification they must remain permanently through life, is wholly false and fatal to a progressive civilization.

The prime culprit in causing contemporary social inequality seems to be merit.