Thomas Jefferson Quotes

There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets.

Rugged individualism really means the regimentation of the many for the benefit of the few.

Power is every stealing from the many to the few.

The Few assume to be the deputies, but they are often only the despoilers of the Many.

As long as the working-people fold hands and pray the gods in Washington to give them work, so long they will not get it. So long as they tramp the streets, whose stones they lay, whose filth they clean, whose sewers they dig, yet upon which they must not stand too long lest the policeman bid them "move on"; as long as they go from factory to factory, begging for the opportunity to be a slave, receiving the insults of bosses and foremen, getting the old "no," the old shake of the head, in these factories they built, whose machines they wrought; so long as they consent to herd like cattle, in the cities, driven year after year, more and more, off the mortgaged land, the land they cleared, fertilized, cultivated, rendered of value; so long as they stand shivering, gazing thro' plate glass windows at overcoats, which they made, but cannot buy, starving in the midst of food they produced but cannot have; so long as they continue to do these things vaguely relying upon some power outside themselves, be it god, or priest, or politician, or employer, or charitable society, to remedy matters, so long deliverance will be delayed.

Ask of politicians the end for which laws were originally designed, and they will answer that the laws were designed as a protection for the poor and weak against the oppression of the rich and powerful. But surely no pretense can be so ridiculous

The rich rob the poor, and the poor rob one another.

As recognized since ancient times, the coexistence of very rich and very poor leads to two possibilities, neither a happy one. The rich can rule alone, disenfranchising or even enslaving the poor, or the poor can rise up and confiscate the wealth of the rich.

The system shaves the dice on the side of those with money and power, and anyone who believes otherwise deserves anything that happens to him.

Face it, the system is rigged, and it's rigged against us.

In poor countries, the rich and powerful crush the poor and powerless.

Large numbers of people are broken from the notion that the system is working for people, that the system is just or humane or peaceful.

For there is no defense for a man who, in the excess of his wealth, has kicked the great altar of Justice out of sight.

The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.

The organization and constant onward sweep of this movement exemplifies the resentment of the many toward the selfishness, greed and the neglect of the few.

The man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day.

A heavy aristocracy and corruption are two bridles in the mouths of a people which will prevent them from making any effectual efforts against their masters.

The worker is always in the sun while the landowner is always in the shade.

Civilization degrades the many to exalt the few

Is the great working class oppressed? Yes, undoubtedly it is. God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little.

The most dreaded of all wars, the war of the poor against the rich … will come and come with all its horrors.

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

Whatever is good for the People is bad for their Governors; and what is good for the Governors is pernicious for the People.

I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.

All down history, nine-tenths of mankind have been grinding corn for the remaining one-tenth, been paid with the husks, and bidden to thank God they had the husks.