Amir > Amir's Quotes

“All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints.”
― David Sedaris, Holidays on Ice

“When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.”
― Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century

“Over a long period of time, the main force in favor of greater equality has been the diffusion of knowledge and skills.”
― Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century

“For millions of people, “wealth” amounts to little more than a few weeks’ wages in a checking account or low-interest savings account, a car, and a few pieces of furniture. The inescapable reality is this: wealth is so concentrated that a large segment of society is virtually unaware of its existence, so that some people imagine that it belongs to surreal or mysterious entities. That is why it is so essential to study capital and its distribution in a methodical, systematic way.”
― Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century

“The history of the distribution of wealth has always been deeply political, and it cannot be reduced to purely economic mechanisms.”
― Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century