Quotes about Inequality

You have young men of color in many communities who are more likely to end up in jail or in the criminal justice system than they are in a good job or in college. And, you know, part of my job, that I can do, I think, without any potential conflicts, is to get at those root causes.

There is nothing remotely dignified about sorting through rotting trash to find something to feed your child, or asking someone for money because you have none (anyone who has contrived to give people money before they had to ask will never forget the look of gratitude in their eyes).

The few who profit from the labor of the masses want to organize the workers into an army which will protect the interests of the capitalists.

People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of mankind as surgeons are to their bodily pains.

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

The worst thing you can do to a child, and I've seen it happen so many times, is the silver spoon.

Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don't pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.

If you're totally illiterate and living on one dollar a day, the benefits of globalization never come to you.

I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor...I truly believe that when the rich meet the poor, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end.

The world of efficiency and anonymity dehumanises us. We have to ask who the invisible people are. Who makes our clothes? Who picks our vegetables? And how are they treated?

There is nothing more sickening than talking about poverty over a fancy dinner.

Dom Helder Camara, a twentieth-century bishop in Brazil, said, "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a Communist.