John Rawls Quotes

It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expense of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.

We are also further than ever from equality of opportunity.

Some people say we have this inequality because some people have been contributing much more to our society, and so it's fair that they get more. But then you look at the people who are at the top, and you realize they're not the people who have transformed our economy, our society.

The reality is, if you were fortunate to be born to rich parents, you have a better chance of succeeding in life. And that's wrong.

We oppose a system that generates huge wealth through astonishing innovation but is fatally unable to distribute fairly and provide universal access to its spoils.

You can somehow get access to what is perceived to be a better school by either being religious or appearing to be religious. That is unfair.

Injustice drives me crazy!

We often hear a lot about subsidies, because it's often the powerful talking about the poor; the poor don't have enough voice to question the privileges.

Such hath it been--shall be--beneath the sun The many still must labour for the one.

A nation will not survive morally or economically when so few have so much and so many have so little.

The existence of poverty is the proof of an unjust and ill-organised society, and our public charities are but the first tardy awakening in the conscience of a robber.

The root cause of poverty is social injustice and the bad government that abets it

We live in the richest country in the world. There's plenty and to spare for no man, woman, or child to be in want. And in addition to this our country was founded on what should have been a great, true principle - the freedom, equality, and rights of each individual. Huh! And what has come of that start? There are corporations worth billions of dollars - and hundreds of thousands of people who don't get to eat.

America is a country that would rather talk about race than class.

Habitat has opened up unprecedented opportunities for me to cross the chasm that separates those of us who are free, safe, financially secure, well fed and housed, and influential enough to shape our own destiny from our neighbors who enjoy few, if any, of these advantages of life.

Pity would be no more, If we did not make somebody poor. Mercy no more could be, If all were happy as we.

Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice.

I've been a witness to unfairness in society all my life. To the conditions under which my mother worked all her life, working in an industrial weaving shed in the north of England. And it has been this feature of unfairness that has motivated me in all of my political thinking.

....All drugs should be legal. War is wrong. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. Thank you. I'll be here all week.

While it is very sturdy of comfortable men to point out that life is unfair, the people it is unfair to are not apt to be morally or philosophically elevated by the announcement. If you are going to preach that unfairness is inescapable for some, good sense suggests that you also accept the inevitability of beastly behavior by people who have to carry the burden.

I can't look in the mirror and see people dying on the street that should have the same opportunities that I've had. And say 'You know what? I can live with myself.' Because I can't if I just watch.

Social justice rests on the hate towards those that enjoy a comfortable position, namely, upon envy.

I want you to admit that there is such a thing as white privilege.

Capitalism has neither the capacity, nor the morality, nor the ethics to solve the problems of poverty.

When I find too many puzzles about the way explanations are given about why there is inequality - why people who work the hardest in the world end up being the poorest - I can't just sit back and not try to understand why the gaps between people are increasing, or why there are so many homeless and hungry people in the world.