Quotes About Inequality

That was the ace hidden up the sleeves of the Jardines, Mathesons and Dents of the world. Despite all their cacklings about Free Trade, the truth was that their commercial advantages had nothing to do with markets or trade or more advanced business practices – it lay in the brute firepower of the British Empire's guns and gunboats.

And to no one is this state more attractive than to those whom it is consistently denied.

Already the sahibs have done more to keep the lower castes in their places than our Hindu kings did over hundreds of years.

How was possible that a small no of men, in the span of a few hours or minutes, could decide the fate of millions of people yet unborn ? How was it possible that the outcome of those brief moments could determine who would determine who would rule whom, who would be rich or poor, master or servant, for generations to come ? Nothing could be a greater injustice, yet such had been the reality ever since human beings first walked the earth.

To be honest, I was sometimes even jealous of those starving children in India, because nobody ever told them to finish up everything on their plate.

That's how God created us: wealth is a crime and poverty is a punishment, though the punishment is not given to the one who sinned, but to the one who hasn't got the money to escape the punishment. The woman, naturally, cannot deny that she is pregnant. The man denies it as much as he likes, and what can you do? God gave men the pleasure and us the punishment.

You will stand in line for snacks behind good clothes on bad bodies, behind the man who is so drunk he has lost his shoes, and so belligerent no one will help him find them.

Karen Lundegaard] was quite frail, debilitated by metastatic breast cancer, which she had long known she had but for which she had been unable to get adequate treatment because she lacked medical insurance. (If you mention anything about me, she said, tell people that.)

I'm sick of this white poverty, the vulgarity of my daily life.

They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.

Poverty makes a slave out of men. In order to eat he will accept work that gives no pleasure.

Moins le blanc est intelligent, plus le noir lui paraît bête.

Prostitution means for the woman the carnal annihilation of will and choice, but for the man it once again signifies an increase in power, pure and simple.

Und ich hasse die Mittelschichts-Blödmänner, die so viel zu sagen haben, aber nie einen einzigen verdammten Tag mit dem Versuch verbracht haben, am Leben zu bleiben.

Es ist wie eine mathematische Gleichung, aber niemand lernt sie in der Schule auswendig; sie wird nicht deutlich auf die Tafel geschrieben. Es ist Algebra für Mädchen, aber niemand bringt sie dir bei. Du wirst zu Fall gebracht oder niedergeworfen, und du lernst selber. Keine Mutter der Welt kann es ertragen, es dir zu erklären.

To not have your suffering recognized is an almost unbearable form of violence.

I knew that not all lives are equal, that the time we live in affects the person we are, more than I had ever thought. Some have a harder chance. Some get no chance at all. With great sadness, I saw so many people born in the wrong time to be happy.

Hard to feel bad for a middle-aged white man.

El analfabetismo y la pobreza son discapacidades, como también lo son la imbecilidad, la obesidad y la apatía.

How many times have I been put at the front of the line without even knowing there was a line? How many times have I walked through a door that opened, invisibly and silently, for me, but slammed shut for others? How many lines have I cut in a life of privilege?

The poor are poor," Jayakumar said to me, "because someone else is trying to play God in their lives.

The real problem is that the way that power is given out in our society pits us against each other.

Moreover, poor people are never opposed to big government because they're exempt from all the annoying things that government does. They're not worried about taxes: The government is not going to raise any taxes that they pay. They drive unlicensed cars, have no insurance, flee accidents, and couldn't pay a court judgment anyway. The government doesn't want to get in touch with the poor for any reason other than to give them things.

Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards used to claim that there are "two Americas," the rich and the poor. If Democrats have their way, there will be two Latin Americas, both of them poor. You're living in one of them right now.