Entitlement Quotes

I hate committing myself to anything. It's probably the lack of discipline, honestly. I'm probably a spoiled brat worried about getting my way every time.

The world doesn't owe you anything. It was here first.

Welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic have discovered that largesse to losers does not reduce their hostility to society, but only increases it. Far from producing gratitude, generosity is seen as an admission of guilt, and the reparations as inadequate compensations for injustices - leading to worsening behavior by the recipients.

For society as a whole, nothing comes as a "right" to which we are "entitled." Even bare subsistence has to be produced-and produced at a cost of heavy toil for much of human history. The only way anyone can have a right to something that has to be produced is to force someone else to produce it for him. The more things are provided as rights, the less the recipients have to work and the more others have to carry their load.

In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.

Much is expected from those to whom much is given.

The safest way to get what you want is to deserve what you want.

The one who tries to get something for nothing generally winds up getting nothing for something.

The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his 'basic rights.'

People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it.

About this business of being a gentleman: I paid so heavily for the fourteen years of my gentleman's education that I feel entitled, now and then, to get some sort of return.

He who is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer

Why not? After all, it belongs to him.

Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.

None but those who work are entitled to eat.

Well, I don't believe in patronage.

Existence alone had never been enough for him; he had always wanted more. Perhaps it was only from the force of his desires that he had regarded himself as a man to whom more was permitted than to others.

Never take your position for granted and never let any favors you receive go to your head.

The arrogance that accompanies merit offends us even more than the arrogance of people who are lacking in merit: since merit itself offends us.

What exactly is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?

Justice is the constant and perpetual wish to render to every one his due.

The insolent civility of a proud man is, if possible, more shocking than his rudeness could be; because he shows you, by his manner, that he thinks it mere condescension in him; and that his goodness alone bestows upon you what you have no pretense to claim.

We like to think that people have to work for their money.

Whatever their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights.

If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor.