Grapes Of Wrath And Some Quotes

"A fellow ain't got a soul of his own, just a little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody . . . Then it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too."
~Tom Joad, "Grapes of Wrath"

"Our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find Justice."
~Plato, Commonwealth III

"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."
~Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1723-1790).

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."
~Henry Louis Mencken (1880 - 1956)

"If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still." ~Ecclesiastes 5:8 NIV

* I borrowed the Grapes of Wrath picture from one of my favorite bloggers--thanks, Hermit!