The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence and back into bondage.
—Fraser Tyler
A civilization which tends to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a fortunate few, and to make of others mere human machines, must inevitably evolve anarchy and bring destruction.
—Henry George
The rich are different from us.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
Yes, they have more money.
—Ernest Hemingway, replying to F. Scott Fitzgerald
The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for errors; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes.
—Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington
We must be careful that the people who make $5,000 a year are not pitted against those who make $25,000 a year by those who make $900,000.
—Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski
If all the rich men in the world divided up their money amongst themselves, there wouldn't be enough to go round.
—Christina Stead
Probably no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.
—Abraham Flexner
Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.
—Peter Ustinov
The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for error; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes.
—Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington
Justice is open to all—like the Ritz Hotel.
—Sir James Mathew
The trouble is that rich people, well-to-do people, very often don't really know who the poor are; and that is why we can forgive them, for knowledge can only lead to love, and love to service. And so, if they are not touched by the poor, it's because they do not know them.
—Mother Teresa
What may be wealth to an individual may not be wealth to a community.
—Henry George
Throughout recorded time… there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other. The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable.
—George Orwell
The United States Congress, like a lot of rich people, lives in two houses.
—John Green