Quotations about one percent

Too much money makes one madd.

James Howell (c. 1594–1666) Welsh historian and writer
Paroimiographia [Παροιμιογραφία]: Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Sawes & Adages, “English Proverbs” (1659) [compiler]
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Added on 8-Apr-26 | Last updated 8-Apr-26
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Topics: billionaire, crazed, derangement, insanity, madness, money, one percent, perspective, proverb, riches, wealth
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And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.

William Gibson (b. 1948) American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and essayist
Count Zero, ch. 2 (1986)
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Added on 9-Feb-26 | Last updated 9-Feb-26
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Topics: demonization, inhumanity, one percent, rich, wealthy
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People say law, but they mean wealth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1841)
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Added on 13-Mar-17 | Last updated 13-Mar-17
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Topics: control, elite, law, money, oligarchy, one percent, plutocracy, riches, wealth
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My father deals with millionaires and billionaires on a daily basis, the sort of people who have egos just this side (and sometimes way over the edge) of sociopathy. The sort of person who thinks he’s the apex predator wading through a universe of sheep.

John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Lock In, ch. 6 (2014)
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Added on 11-Oct-16 | Last updated 8-Jan-26
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Topics: arrogance, billionaire, ego, elite, millionaire, one percent, plutocrats, predator, rich, sociopath, superiority, wealth, wealthy
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When people ask, “Why should the rich pay a larger percent of their income than middle-income people?” — my answer is not an answer most people get: It’s because their power developed from laws that enriched them.

Ralph Nader (b. 1934) American attorney, author, lecturer, political activist
“Public Citizen Number One,” by Debra Saunders, San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle (13 Oct 1996)

Added on 10-Oct-16 | Last updated 10-Oct-16
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Topics: middle class, one percent, progressive, rich, taxation, taxes, upper class, wealth, wealthy
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Rich people show their appreciation through favors. When everyone you know has more money than they know what to do with, money stops being a useful transactional tool. So instead you offer favors. Deals. Quid pro quos. Things that involve personal involvement rather than money. Because when you’re that rich, your personal time is your limiting factor.

John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Lock In, ch. 3 [Shane] (2014)
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Added on 4-Oct-16 | Last updated 8-Jan-26
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Topics: cost, deal, exchange, favor, involvement, money, one percent, price, quid pro quo, rich, service, transaction, wealth, wealthy
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Despite considerable propaganda to the contrary, the greatest need of the moment is not a decision to be tender to the well-to-do. Their situation is not so desperate as popularly represented. Also one makes an economy work not by rewarding the rich but by rewarding all who contribute to its success.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
Speech (1963-12-13), “Wealth and Poverty,” National Policy Committee on Pockets of Poverty
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Added on 31-Aug-15 | Last updated 18-Aug-24
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Topics: class warfare, economic justice, one percent, policy, rich, taxation, wealthy
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To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there’s more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged.

Norman Mailer (1923-2007) American novelist, journalist, playwright, activist
Esquire (1996)

Added on 15-May-15 | Last updated 15-May-15
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Topics: idle, one percent, poor, rich, subsidize, subsidy, welfare
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The Wall Street reactionaries are not satisfied with being rich. They want to increase their power and privileges, regardless of what happens to the other fellow. They are gluttons of privilege.

Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-1953)
Speech, National Plowing Match, Dexter, Iowa (18 Sep 1948)
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Added on 14-Oct-14 | Last updated 14-Oct-14
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Topics: finance, one percent, plutocracy, plutocrats, wall street, wealthy
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We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.

Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) American lawyer, activist, Supreme Court Justice (1916-39)
Quoted in Raymond Lonergan, “A Steadfast Friend of Labor,” Labor magazine, Washington, D.C. (1941-10-14)
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Brandeis had died on the 5th of the month. Lonergan, himself, gives the quote second hand ("... he once said to a younger friend, who appreciated the opportunity to sit at the feet of this modern Gamaliel"). This remains the only citation of the quotation, on those rare occasions when it is given such.
Collected in Irving Dillard, ed., Mr. Justice Brandeis, Great American (1941).

Added on 14-Oct-14 | Last updated 24-Feb-25
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Topics: democracy, equality, oligarchy, one percent, plutocracy, wealth
More quotes by Brandeis, Louis

No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar’s worth of service rendered — not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective — a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Speech (1910-08-31), “The New Nationalism,” John Brown Memorial Park dedication, Osawatomie, Kansas
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Added on 19-Jun-12 | Last updated 29-May-25
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Topics: deservedness, dividends, earnings, fortune, income tax, inheritance, inheritance tax, interest, investment, labor, oligarchy, one percent, service, stocks, taxation, wealth, work
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Quotations about: one percent

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one percent