Trouble brews when we steal from the poor and give to the rich.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

Conscience is a man’s compass.

Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.

The revolution is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters.

We were poor, but we smiled.

As we know, while our species remains alive, everybody has the sacred duty to be optimistic. Ethically, any other behaviour wouldn’t be admissible.

Justice… is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money’s sake.

Understand, when you eat meat, that something did die. You have an obligation to value it – not just the sirloin but also all those wonderful tough little bits.

In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.

Well, I thought the deal was, when you went to work for the government you weren’t supposed to make money!

Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It’s the other way around. They never vote for us.

I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.

Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.

Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.

Some of these Ivy League kids want to have it both ways. They want to be baby members of the 1 percent, which they most certainly are, and yet still portray themselves as the oppressed.

As a kid, I got three meals a day. Oatmeal, miss-a-meal and no meal.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.

The people are hungry: It is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes.

Gay marriage is going to happen. It must.

Morality is of the highest importance – but for us, not for God.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

If you’re totally illiterate and living on one dollar a day, the benefits of globalization never come to you.

You’ve got to watch the politics of AIDS. The politics of AIDS can work both for and against the victims of AIDS.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

Capitalism knows only one color: that color is green; all else is necessarily subservient to it, hence, race, gender and ethnicity cannot be considered within it.

We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.

Poverty breeds despair. We know this. Despair breeds violence. We know this. In turbulent times, isn’t it cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?

To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

We all have the duty to do good.

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor.

Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.

I believe that a child going without an education is a crime.

Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.

When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don’t think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

If you are poor, you are not likely to live long.

Success consecrates the most offensive crimes.

During the 60’s, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement.

Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.

Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

Tourism provides employment to the poorest of the poor. Gram seller earns something, auto-rickshaw driver earns something, pakoda seller earns something, and tea seller also earns something.

In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

I grew up in an era of pretty severe poverty. My parents weathered the Great Depression, and money was always a very big concern. I was weaned on a shortage mentality and placed in foster homes largely because there simply wasn’t enough money to take care of the most basic of needs.

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?

The role of the intellectual cannot be to excuse the violence of one side and condemn that of the other.

It’s very difficult for the American people to believe that our government, one of the richest on Earth, is also one of the stingiest on Earth.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?