Quotes About Inequality

A character in Jonathan Franzen's 2010 novel Freedom puts it this way: "If you don't have money, you cling to your freedoms all the more angrily. Even if smoking kills you, even if you can't afford to feed your kids, even if your kids are getting shot down by maniacs with assault rifles. You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to fuck up your life.

The country that always modeled social mobility for the rest of the world has become more class-ridden than recent aristocracies like Austria and Japan.

There are two extremes to be avoided, one is the disposition of the rich to aggrandize themselves at the expense of the poor. . . . The other is . . . the anxiety of poor people to get possessions of the accumulations of the rich, and to have them divided among them, and a general leveling take place.

The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. "It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace." He gave a shrug. "They never are.

Jon shrugged. 'Girls get the arms but not the swords. Bastards get the swords but not the arms. I did not make the rules, little sister.

Cuando la gente se muere de hambre, no ve con buenos ojos a los sacerdotes que están tan gordos que no pueden caminar.

If there are gods, they made sheep so wolves could eat mutton, and they made the weak for the strong to play with.

The gods don't care about men, no more than kings care about peasants.

If walls could keep us small, peasants would all be tiny and kings as large as giants," said Ser Jorah. "I've seen huge men born in hovels, and dwarfs who dwelt in castles.

But peasant's pride is lordling's shame.

Where were the gods then? The gods don't care about men, no more than kings care about peasants.

He was not born wealthy. In the world as I have seen it, no man grows rich by kindness.

The world made no sense when a great prince died so a hedge knight might live.

It's by the king's decree," the man said. "The strong have always taken from the weak,

Es un pecado que una persona esté tan gorda cuando la mitad del reino se muere de hambre.

In this world the weak are the victims of the strong.

Negroes around them enviously admired their clear white skins.

that a white skin was a sure indication of the possession of superior intellectual and moral qualities; that all Negroes were inferior to them; that God had intended for the United States to be a white man's country

In our wholly factitious society, to have no cash at all means frightful want or absolute powerlessness.

This is an impressive crowd—the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base.

And it is as you reap comfort from being white that we suffer for being Black and people of color. This is how we are tied to each other. You see, your comfort is linked to our pain and suffering.

Poverty is much more than a way of life," Jack later wrote. "It goes much farther than skin-deep. It's no tattoo that fades with time. Nor a brand that can be put out of mind except when faced. Poverty, if you've known it, is you.

Kemiskinan itu bukan alasan, dia adalah satu kondisi. Seperti gravitasi, dia mempengaruhi semuanya

And so, as generally happens, those who have most give least, and those with less somehow make shrift to share.