Our modern democratic ideal is based on the hope that inequalities will be based on merit more than inheritance or luck.

Wealth is so concentrated that a large segment of society is virtually unaware of its existence.

We want capitalism and market forces to be the slave of democracy rather than the opposite.

It's important to realize that innovation and growth in itself are not sufficient to moderate inequality of wealth.

When inequality gets to an extreme, it is completely useless for growth.

No hypocrisy is too great when economic and financial elites are obliged to defend their interest.

Over a long period of time, the main force in favor of greater equality has been the diffusion of knowledge and skills.

Indeed, the distribution of wealth is too important an issue to be left to economists, sociologists, historians, and philosophers.

At the heart of every major political upheaval lies a fiscal revolution.

I don't think there is any serious evidence that we need to be paying people more than 100 times the average wage in order to get high-performing managers.

I certainly agree that capital is not a one-dimensional object, and that the return on capital takes very different forms for different assets or different people.

There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.

My bike is my gym, my wheelchair and my church all in one. I'd like to ride my bike all day long but I've got this thing called a job that keeps getting in the way.

Everything, everything in war is barbaric... But the worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.

Trying to solve the mystery is what I enjoy most about writing.

I've always felt that because I'm from Cleveland, which isn't recognised as a place for hip-hop, I needed to step it up if I wanted to make myself known.

a kite is a victim you are sure of. you love it because it pulls.

The true religion of America has always been America.

Valor consists in the power of self recovery.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.

Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities. Prune his extravagance, sober him, and you undo him.