1128 – “When we shit we forget our airs and our graces, we forget how famous we or how rich we are. All of that goes away. You are never more yourself than when you’re taking a shit. You have that moment where you realize, This is me. This is who I am.

– Trevor Noah

1122 – Walt Whitman on the Greatest Country

“The greatest country, the richest country, is not that which has the most capitalists, monopolists, immense grabbings, vast fortunes, with its sad, sad soil of extreme, degrading, damning poverty, but the land in which there are the most homesteads, freeholds – where wealth does not show such contrasts high and low, where all men have enough – a modest living – and no man is made possessor beyond the sane and beautiful necessities.”

-Walt Whitman

962 – “When I was poor and I complained about inequality they said I was bitter, now I’m rich and complain about inequality they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m starting to think that just don’t want to talk about inequality.”

-Russell Brand

884 – “I would like to see every single soldier on every single side, just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down at the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I ain’t gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks want to fight. Give them the guns.”

–Woody Guthrie

876 – “The richest person in the world is not the one who still has the first dollar they ever earned. It’s the person who still has their first friend.”

–anonymous

731 – “The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.”

–anonymous [Often Misattributed, See Source Notes]

433 – “History will judge societies and governments — and their institutions — not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.”

–César Chávez

316 – “You Didn’t Build That” Quote

“There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, “well, it must be because I was just so smart.” There are a lot of smart people out there. “It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.” Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges; if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

–Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States of America

276 – “Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures. But there is another harm; and it is evident that we should try to do away with that. The great corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them, but it is duty bound to control them wherever the need of such control is shown.”

–Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States of America

242 – “Who, being loved, is poor?”

–Hester Worsley in Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance