Inequality

“One part of mankind is in prison; another is starving to death; and those of us who are free and fed are not awake. What will it take to rouse us?”

—Saul Bellow

“That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent.”

—Aldous Huxley

“Men are by nature unequal. It is vain, therefore, to treat them as if they were equal.”

—James Anthony Froude

“Everybody should have an equal chance—but they shouldn’t have a flying start.”

—Harold Wilson

“We were located halfway up the social ladder. Or halfway down. It depends on which way you were looking.”

—Beatrice Lille

“An economy open to new concepts and novel ventures is bound to generate unequal gains.”

—Edmund Phelps

“The doctrines of egalitarianism and of sufficiency are logically independent.”

—Harry G. Frankfurt

“Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.”

—Samuel Johnson

“The cry of equality pulls everyone down.”

—Iris Murdoch

“The calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind, but the middle station had the fewest disasters.”

—Daniel Defoe

“Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.”

—Honoré de Balzac

“What we need is more income, even if it means a bigger income disparity gap.”

—P.J. O’Rourke

“The truth of the matter is that influence inequality makes income inequality look impoverished.”

C.W. Lin

—Tom

“Everyone cares about fairness, but there are two major kinds. On the left, fairness often implies equality, but on the right it means proportionality—people should be rewarded in proportion to what they contribute.”

—Jonathan Haidt

“If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him— how does God’s love reside in him?”

—1 John 3:17