Quotes About Inequality

The poor object to being governed badly, while the rich object to being governed at all.

In the Banda Islands, ten pounds of nutmeg cost less than one English penny. In London, that same spice sold for more than £2.10s. – a mark-up of a staggering 60,000 per cent. A small sackful was enough to set a man up for life, buying him a gabled dwelling in Holborn and a servant to attend to his needs

Tanta gente se las ingeniaba para ignorar la miseria, aceptando las desigualdades como ley de vida. Y así habían sido las cosas desde siempre, pensaba. ¿Quién se atrevía a soñar en cambiar todo aquello?

Rich men have dreams. Poor men die to make them come true.

You shut your door to these poor women," he said so they could hear him, "and you'll answer for it the rest of your lives. You won't sleep. You'll choke on drinks. The food you eat'll block up your bowels and you'll die of your own shit.

When men ruled over men, time was wasted and misspent.

Lou Kitchenmaster, a retired teacher from Michigan, wrote an editorial in 2012 that puts the progressive position in perfect perspective: None of us would expect our major auto makers to build a high-quality product given damaged or defective materials; however, too many unfairly expect our public schools to accomplish such, regardless of the inherent condition of the "product" they receive. So he considers poor kids to be "damaged or defective materials

But even when the principle of equal treatment was betrayed, American leaders in every era have emphatically affirmed it, not so much out of hypocrisy as out of aspiration. Indeed, for those who were devoted to justice, the persistence of inequality was precisely what made equality before the law so imperative.

the powerful and the powerless.

It is very frightening to feel alone when you are standing against a rich and powerful person and all his attendant helpers.

For much of the female half of the world, food is the first signal of our inferiority. It lets us know that our own families may consider female bodies to be less deserving, less needy, less valuable.

America is an enormous frosted cupcake in the middle of millions of starving people.

However sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, class, religion or all four. However far it may expand, the progression inevitably rests on unequal power and airtight roles within the family.

To transform inequality in the outside world, we have to start inside the home. We have to get rid of the old idea that what happens to men is political, and therefore subject to change, but what happens to women is cultural, and therefore can't, or shouldn't, be changed.

As with all inferior things, this part of the city was given an adjective while the rest stole the noun.

PLANNING AHEAD IS A measure of class. The rich and even the middle class plan for future generations, but the poor can plan ahead only a few weeks or days.

White people should have sued for being culturally deprived in a white ghetto. When humans are ranked instead of linked, everyone loses.

Prostitution isn't the oldest profession, it's the oldest oppression.

The dry tinder of inequality was everywhere, just waiting to be set on fire.

Looking at international economic life brings to mind the ancient image of the world riding on the back of a turtle—only in reality, the turtle is a woman. She inches along, laboring just beneath the level of economic visibility, often blaming herself for not being able to bear more weight. Occasionally, she retreats into her shell, as if withdrawal were the only form of rebellion. But only when she upsets its balance will the world roll off her back.

Gender is the remaining caste system that still cuts deep enough, and spreads wide enough, to be confused with the laws of nature.

This country thinks people with money are interesting, not people who need money like

Suddenly I guess why he's so angry. All those shows tell the stories of passengers, not drivers. When I ask him, he says, "Exactly! This country thinks people with money are interesting, not people who need money like me.

Judy Collins sings about in "The Blizzard," or read Alice Walker's essay "My Father's Country Is the Poor." Each