Living Wage Quotes

We created order out of chaos. We made beauty and shaped history. We kept the magic of the realms safe in our grasp. How has it come to this?"

"You've not kept it safe. You've kept it to yourselves."

She shakes her head to dismiss the thought. "Gemma, you may still use the power for much good. With us to help you-"

"And what, pray, have you done to better the lot of others?" I ask. "You call each other sisters, but are we not all sisters? The seamstress ruining her eyesight to keep her children in porridge? The suffragists fighting for the vote? The girls younger than I who would ask for a living wage, whose working conditions are so deplorable they were locked in a burning factory? they could make use of your precious help."

She holds her head high. "We would have done so. In time."

I snort in disgust. "It is daunting to be a woman in any world. What good does our power do us when it must be kept secret?"

"You would prefer bold voices to illusion?"

"Yes. ~ Libba Bray

New Orleans is a city whose basic industry is the service industry. That's why it makes its money. That's - it brings people to the city. People come to the city and experience the wonders of this extraordinary city and everything else. The question is that, how do we create jobs which are the jobs that have pay, that - living wages? ~ Danny Glover

In 1840, the year that Victoria and Albert were married, no woman in the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland could vote, be elected to parliament or any other public office, attend the university, or enter a profession. If a woman married, her property, her earnings, her children, and her body legally belonged to her husband, to do with as he willed. The world of business was more hostile to women in 1840 than it had been in 1740 or 1640, and though many women were forced to work, a bare handful could make a living wage. ~ Gillian Gill

Paying people a fair wage is a sign of respect and acknowledgement of the value of people's contributions to the business. When people are treated fairly and with respect, they will provide unparalleled levels of support and commitment inside the business, and to clients and customers. Everyone is more successful when people are paid a living wage. ~ Amy B. Lyman

When serpents bargain for the right to squirm
and the sun strikes to gain a living wage -
when thorns regard their roses with alarm
and rainbows are insured against old age
when every thrush may sing no new moon in
if all screech-owls have not okayed his voice
- and any wave signs on the dotted line
or else an ocean is compelled to close
when the oak begs permission of the birch
to make an acorn - valleys accuse their
mountains of having altitude - and march
denounces april as a saboteur
then we'll believe in that incredible
unanimal mankind (and not until) ~ E. E. Cummings

The more we talk about the epidemic as an individual disease phenomenon or a moral failing, the easier it is to obfuscate and ignore the social and economic conditions that predispose certain individuals to addiction. The fix isn't more Suboxone or lectures on morality but rather a reinvigorated democracy that provides a pathway for meaningful work, with a living wage, for everybody. ~ Beth Macy

Prostitution requires for its diminution not only laws, well enforced, to abolish the traffic in womanhood; not only better social protection against harpies who seduce young girls seeking an honest livelihood; not only better chaperonage of young girls in exposed occupations; not only better opportunities for natural enjoyment of youthful pleasure under morally safe conditions; not only these - but most of all, greater power on the part of the average young girl to earn her own support under right conditions and for a living wage. ~ Anna Garlin Spencer

During the war, the holders of power in all countries found it necessary to bribe the populations into cooperation by unusual concessions. Wage-earners were allowed a living wage, Hindus were told they were men and brothers, women were given the vote, and young people were allowed to enjoy those innocent pleasures of which the old, in the name of morality, always wish to rob them. The war being won, the victors set to work to deprive their tools of advantages temporarily conceded. ~ Bertrand Russell

To the second end, we hold that minimum wage commissions should be established in the Nation and in each State to inquire into wages paid in various industries and to determine the standard which the public ought to sanction as a minimum; and we believe that, as a present installment of what we hope for in the future, there should be at once established in the Nation and its several States minimum standards for the wages of women, taking the present Massachusetts law as a basis from which to start and on which to improve. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Few places in American culture have made as effective a case for entrepreneurship than hip-hop. Hip-hop tells young people that our society is offering very limited options for youth. And that while society points to a radical decline in living wage jobs for youth and meaningful and affordable education, hip-hop is offering an alternative legitimate economy that is giving youth hope. ~ Bakari Kitwana

I think it's false, shallow, to be giving to others when your own need is great. The idea is not to comfort people, not to make them feel better but to make them feel worse, to constantly put before them the degradations and humiliations they go through to get what they call a living wage. ~ John Lennon

In a book published at the time, a lace manufacturer admitted that he expected his workers to turn a few tricks on the side to make up for his not paying them a living wage. Soon lace, including crocheted lace, began to be seen as morally tainted - it's made by prostitutes! As Donna Kooler suggests in The Encyclopedia of Crochet, this may even explain how the word "hooker" came to have such wayward connotations. ~ Debbie Stoller

It paid barely a living wage, but he stayed with it - gradually and in the end gratefully arriving at the point in life when you understand there are no great changes ahead. ~ Ann Packer

You can't receive a living wage unless you work. ~ Mark Winne

Business of blurring is fantastic. They both are playing the politics of avoidance. They avoid all the issues on corporate power, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, so on and so forth. They avoid all those. That's the politics of avoidance. All the major issues that are so much on people's minds - health care, living wage, public works, jobs - they avoid. ~ Ralph Nader

By mandating an even higher minimum, the living wage prices even more people out of work. The people who push these cockamamie ideas never seem to ask why any employer would hire someone at $8.23 if that person's services are only valued in the marketplace at, say, $5.00. ~ Lawrence Reed

Everyone can have health care. Everyone can earn a living wage. We can educate all our kids - well.But none of that happens unless there's a political revolution. And it's not going to happen unless we deal with corporate control of the media. ~ Bernie Sanders

This fantasy that it is possible to fish sustainably, legally, and using workers with contracts, making a living wage, and still deliver a five-ounce can of skipjack tuna for $2.50 that ends up on the grocery shelf only days after the fish was pulled from the water thousands of mi,es away. Prices that low and efficiencies that tight come with hidden costs, and it is the manning agencies that help in the hiding. ~ Ian Urbina

The one thing you can ask, I think, is that actors get paid a living wage. I would like it if all the repertory theatres that currently exist could do that. It would make a huge difference. ~ Ian McKellen

Factory workers are not working for capitalism, they are working for a living wage. ~ Bernard Crick

Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

If people envisage me in the Senate they might think of me as someone who would emulate Paul Wellstone, fighting for the issues he fought for. He was a good friend of mine.We'll be trying to do a couple of things. One is fighting for national health care. Another is fighting to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, and changing our trade policies. ~ Bernie Sanders

You know, this is a business where only 15% make a living wage and only 9% of those are women. But I figured somebody has to be that 15%, somebody's got to be one of those women. ~ Marcia Wallace

Positive rights are the right to shelter, the right to education, the right to health care, the right to a living wage. These things are - these are, I would call them, more properly, political rights rather than positive rights. And they are extremely tricky, because now we are dealing with things that are zero sum. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Raising the minimum wage means raising the living wage - and that's good news for Ohio. ~ Sherrod Brown

If you paid Americans a living wage, they would be able to pay for products made by Americans in America. ~ Henry Rollins

People are so cheap. Everyone wants quality, no one wants to pay for it. Here's the suburban dream
to hire great workers who are such meek morons that they don't have the guts to ask for a living wage. ~ Joan Bauer

Strax gave a snort of amusement. 'It is surely a very simple choice. One option is for a quiet life with honest work amongst other humans paying a living wage and with prospects of promotion within a distinguished household. The other... ' He drew himself up to his full height and looked up at them, 'is the prospect of constant danger, fear and risk. No chance of ever seeing your friends again, or making new ones. The knowledge that death waits around the next corner and you are unlikely to see the end of the next week without at the very least a serious injury. A glorious alternative. ~ Justin Richards

In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or even economics, but morality. Its advocates are basically opposed to the idea that wages are a market price-determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of apples or coal. And it is for that reason, rather than the practical details, that the broader political movement of which the demand for a living wage is the leading edge is ultimately doomed to failure: For the amorality of the market economy is part of its essence, and cannot be legislated away. ~ Paul Krugman

And I would not blame you if you still asked, Why bother to make contact with kindred spirits you never see and may never hear from, who perhaps do not even exist except in your hopes? Why spend ten years in an apprenticeship to fiction only to discover that this society so little values what you do that it won't pay you a living wage for it? ~ Wallace Stegner

A job should lift workers out of poverty, not keep them in it. ~ Bernie Sanders

If a hundred people were shipwrecked on an island, what would it even mean to say that everyone there has a "right" to food, or that everyone has a "right" to health care, or the "right" to a job, or the "right" to a "living wage"? ~ Larken Rose

Those externalized costs have always included labor. It is only the decline over time of the minimum wage in real dollars that's made the fast food industry possible, along with feedlot agriculture, pharmaceuticals on the farm, pesticides and regulatory forbearance. All these things are part of the answer to the question: Why is that crap so cheap? Our food is dishonestly priced. One of the ways in which it's dishonestly priced is the fact that people are not paid a living wage to process it, to serve it, to grow it, to slaughter it. ~ Michael Pollan

It's tough to figure out how do we compete in Europe and North America, when obviously a living wage for us is very different than a living wage in Indonesia. ~ John Malkovich

The Occupy Wall Street collective is confused about what it wants but it wants it now! Some of the loonier demands from its independent thinkers: Striking all existing public and private debt from the books across the "entire planet"; elimination of all international borders; free college education; a guaranteed "living wage" for all regardless of employment; an end to free trade; trillions in additional spending for infrastructure and ecological restoration; and ending the fossil fuel economy. ~ Mike Rosen

We stand for a living wage. Wages are subnormal if they fail to provide a living for those who devote their time and energy to industrial occupations. The monetary equivalent of a living wage varies according to local conditions, but must include enough to secure the elements of a normal standard of living-a standard high enough to make morality possible, to provide for education and recreation, to care for immature members of the family, to maintain the family during periods of sickness, and to permit of reasonable saving for old age. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

I wanted to earn a living wage and to see something nice about me in the 'New York Times.' I wanted my mother to be proud. I wanted all the things you want and also feel silly for wanting. I wanted readers to say they'd enjoyed something of mine - to see my photo in magazines where I'd seen photos of other writers. ~ David Lipsky

I think it depends on what agenda that female president brings. It's not good if that female president brings an agenda which is actually hostile to the cause of living wages. Women need equal wages to men, but not equal wages at poverty. ~ Jill Stein

Hillary Clinton understands that if someone in America this country works 40 hours a week, that person should not be living in poverty. She understands that we must raise the minimum wage to a living wage. ~ Bernie Sanders

When I talk about the city, I talk about a city that elevates people, which is the strength of New York. We always had the ability to do that. We had the services to do that: good schools, living-wage jobs. We're moving away from that toward a two-tiered system: a small group of very wealthy people and the rest of the city, poor and working poor. ~ Sal Albanese

In my view, we need a massive federal jobs program which puts millions of our people back to work. We must end our disastrous trade policies. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. And we have to fight for pay equity for women. ~ Bernie Sanders

The goal of a just society should be to provide satisfying work with a living wage to all its citizens. ~ Michael Dirda

But the steep drop in violent crime presented police with a problem. If making arrests is the only way to advance in your career, but crime is dropping, what do you do? Furthermore, what to do if the only way to make a living wage is to rack up as much overtime as possible? ~ Matt Taibbi

One of the biggest issues with mainstream feminist writing has been the way the idea of what constitutes a feminist issue is framed. We rarely talk about basic needs as a feminist issue. Food insecurity and access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. Instead of a framework that focuses on helping women get basic needs met, all too often the focus is not on survival but on increasing privilege. For a movement that is meant to represent all women, it often centers on those who already have most of their needs met. ~ Mikki Kendall

Leadership has to be focused on some very radical ideas that only we as 21st Century people can talk about: making sure people have a livelihood, making sure people receive a living wage, making sure the environment, the Mother Earth, is embraced and cherished and not destroyed. Making sure people are healthy in what they eat, making sure we hold people and corporations accountable for the damage they do not only to our environment but to our institutions. ~ Danny Glover

An industry that cannot pay its workers a decent living wage has no right to exist. ~ Fiorello H. La Guardia

The people who harvest America's food must be treated with respect and earn a living wage. ~ Frances Beinecke

Any way you slice it, increasing the minimum wage in Michigan ... is likely to make it more difficult for the working poor to find jobs ... those who most need the work will have a harder time finding it. ~ Paul Kersey

I have known war as few men now living know it. It's very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes. ~ Douglas MacArthur

The first thing I did when I got inside was turn on the kitchen light. Then I moved to the table, putting my dad's iPod on the speaker dock, and a Bob Dylan song came on, the notes familiar. I went into the living room, hitting the switch there, then down the hallway to my room, where I did the same. It was amazing what a little noise and brightness could do to a house and a life, how much the smallest bit of each could change everything. After all these years of just passing through, I was beginning to finally feel at home. ~ Sarah Dessen

Truth is truth, not the explanations of Truth. Truth is a living, moving process. Truth is constantly undulating and vibrating. You can become one with the Truth, but you cannot adequately explain it. ~ Ilchi Lee

The image a society evolves of the relationship between the living and the dead is, in the final analysis, an attempt, on the level of religious thought, to conceal, embellish or justify the actual relationships which prevail among the living. ~ Claude Levi-Strauss

What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it's a drag? But you see, that's what people do. ~ Alan Watts

We keep quiet about what we read. Our enjoyment of a book remains a jealously guarded secret. Perhaps because there`s no need to talk, or because it takes time to distill what we've read before we can say anything. Silence is our guarantee of intimacy. We might have finished reading but we`re still living
the book. ~ Daniel Pennac

First we have to step out of our dream of separation, the insularity with which we have imprisoned ourselves, and acknowledge that we are a part of a multidimensional living spiritual being we call the world. The world is much more than just the physical world we perceive through the senses, just as we are much more than just our own physical bodies. Only as a part of a living whole can we help to heal the whole. Just as we need to work together with the outer ecosystem, we need to work together with the inner worlds. We need their support and help, their power and knowledge. The devas understand the patterns of climate change better than we do, because they are the forces behind the weather and the winds. Just as plant devas know the healing powers of plants (and taught the shamans and healers their knowledge), so are there more powerful devas that know and guide the patterns of evolution of the whole planet. ~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Animal spirits often will appear during the hours between dusk and dawn; also known as the "tween times". They will always give you something. It may be just a simple pause within the chaos of life to remind you that there is more to life than the details of living it, working it and paying for it. It may be a shred of insight or a flash of recognition that comes to you in a fleeting thought or maybe in a dream in the tween times of your own mind. ~ Kate McGahan

Sometimes, being the way you are might be the only problem that you have in your life. ~ Me

Old men, old men, old men. Medals, medals, medals. Not a brow without a furrow, not a breast without a star. My brother and husband are uniquely-young here. The grouping of young Grand Dukes doesn't count because a grouping is just what they are: a marble bas-relief. Today the whole old-age of Russia seems to have flowed into this place in homage to the eternal youth of Greece. A living lesson of history and philosophy: this is what time does with people, this is what it does
with gods. This is what time does with a man, this is what (a glance at the statues) art does. And, the last lesson: this is what time does with a man; this is what a man does with time. But because of my youth I don't think about that, I feel only a cold shudder. ("The Opening of the Museum") ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

We all have vices, visible and invisible. Some we deliberately keep secret. Others we don't even realize or we refuse to admit we have ... Vices can be lots of fun, or they can turn your life into a living hell. Accept them for what they are, just another aspect of the mind's creation, and you can enjoy them - if you choose - without being broken by them.
- Zeena Schreck for VICE Magazine ~ Zeena Schreck

The usual complaint is, 'I have no other way of earning a living.' The harsh reply can be, 'Do you have to live?' ~ Tertullian

I finally feel like I'm finding my way
and not just living day by day
I'm doing what I love
I'm going where I want to go
I'm being who I want to be
I'm happy
And you know what? I think everyone deserves to feel the same way. ~ Connor Franta

If this Government cannot get the adjustment, get manufacturing going again, and keep moderate wage outcomes and a sensible economic policy, then Australia is basically done for. We will end up being a third rate economy ... a banana republic. ~ Paul Keating

In 1985, I was living with my sister in Virginia, and since I was still in high school, I worked at McDonald's to save money to get an abortion. It sounds really terrible, but it was the best decision I ever made. It was the first time I took responsibility for my actions. I messed up, had sex without contraception, and got pregnant at 15. ~ Kathleen Hanna

Incredible how so many people have no sense of honor. How does this happen? This happens by thriving on how one appears to the world around him rather than cultivating a person inside him that he knows is honorable and that he can be proud of. When all the focus is on what people think about you based upon your facebook profile or based upon the exterior that you put on everyday; you leave no room for looking at yourself and saying, "I want to look into the mirror every day and see someone that I can be proud of." And that's what a life of honor is based upon. It is based upon the knowledge that you know your own actions, your own self, and you can see the things that you do and know the things that you think. You answer to yourself, therefore, your standards need to come up to what you expect of yourself. It doesn't matter at all if anybody is looking. When such a sense of honor is present in a large group of people, that's when we see no crime rate or a very low crime rate, respect for other human life and personas, respect for the surroundings and really a respect for oneself. Because a respect for other people can only first be born from a true respect for oneself. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Monsanto doesn't care about feeding the world. We have to think about the wage slavery of migrant workers and salary slavery of those who are desperately unhappy. ~ Wendell Berry

Did you ever see mum and dad hug?' Yngve said.
I walked back to him.
'No,' I said. 'Not that I can remember. Did you?'
He nodded in front of me in the semi-darkness.
'Once. It was in Hove, so I must have been five. Dad was yelling at mum so much she burst into tears. She was standing in the kitchen crying. He went into the living room. Then he went back and put his arms around her and consoled her. That's the only time. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

Like completing a run, living today begins with preparation, planning, and prayer. ~ Elizabeth George

We make our living by working and earning. We make our life by servicing and caring. ~ Debasish Mridha

This was hers and hers alone. Forevermore. Or at least so I thought… but shit didn't work out that way, and then you came along… and circle be damned, I don't want to be finished with you." Now it was her turn to feel poleaxed, her body going numb as she struggled to comprehend what he was saying. "Autumn, I'm in love with you - that's why I came here tonight. And we don't have to be together, and you don't have to get over what I said, but I wanted you to hear that from me. And I also want to tell you that I'm at peace with it, because…" He took a deep breath. "You want to know why Wellsie got pregnant? It wasn't because I wanted a young. It's because she knew that every night when I left the house I could get killed in the field, and as she said, she wanted something to keep on living for. If I had been the one to go? She would have carved out a life for herself, and… the strange thing is, I would have wanted her to do that. Even if it included someone else. I guess I've realized that… she wouldn't have wanted me to mourn her forever. She'd have wanted me to move on… and I have. ~ J.R. Ward

All teachings are mere references. The true experience is living your own life. Then, even the holiest of words are only words. ~ Ming-Dao Deng

UEFA conducted an analysis of the wage bills of clubs across fifty-two European national leagues and found that the club with the highest wage bill won the national title twenty-nine times (56 percent), the second highest wage bill won eleven times (21 percent), the third highest won four times (8 percent), and the rest won 15 percent of the time. ~ Stefan Szymanski

Discover the joy of giving and you will discover the reason for living. ~ Mark Victor Hansen

Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time, but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit. ~ Aristotle.

If you wanted to dissect the structure of living cells, genetic analysis was an extremely powerful method, so my interest turned to that. ~ Joshua Lederberg

Jesus Christ, really? How did you ever survive living with me as long as you did without having sex every other hour?" "With God's aid alone," he said seriously. "It was a terrible time." "Just ~ R. Lee Smith

Alan Paul plunges into Chinese life and takes us along for the ride, through vegetable markets, used-car lots, Taoist temples, divey bars, and a beachside music festival before thousands of cheering fans. He conveys the thrills and challenges of living abroad, the confusions and regrets, and most of all the opportunity to become the person we always hoped to be. ~ Peter Hessler

Stop comparing or boast at your victories. He was referring to enormous vitality and strength of God of Jesus seeking union with us. The living acts of a Christian become somehow the acts of Christ. ~ Brennan Manning

Who among us is living in the past? You, who would bestow the horrors of the toiling industrial age upon this country, or I, who wish that our poor Europe might recover the naturalness and faith of these children of slaves? ~ Umberto Eco

I won, goddammit. I beat Kollberg. I beat you. I got everything I goddamn wanted: fame, wealth, power. Shit, I even got the girl."
"The problem with happy endings," Tan'elKoth said,"is that nothing is ever truly over."
"Fuck that," Hari said."I am living happily ever goddamn after. I am. ~ Matthew Woodring Stover

I am an Air Force brat who grew up at various Air Force bases. I changed six schools in about five years and got stability for the first time when I was sent to a boarding school, Rishi Valley. I lived outside of a cantonment-style living and was among an eclectic mix of kids and got exposed to books and other things. ~ Kapil Sharma

Brady! You can't watch that!"
He looked up at me, his eyebrows furrowed, from his place on the floor. The remote was far away from him, next to the screen, so he couldn't have changed the channel. I snatched it up and hit the information button. "What the hell is a YoGabbaGabba?" I looked back over at Brady and frowned. "Uh, never mind. Go ahead."
Walking with purpose back into the kitchen, I whispered into the receiver. "Okay. No joke, there is a talking, dancing, bright red, studded dildo on the screen. There are other ones that look like him, and I swear to God one is wearing a condom on his head. That's a kids' show?" I looked back into the living room. "Whatever happened to good old-fashioned cartoons? Don't they have good shit like Animaniacs anymore? ~ Amber L. Johnson

Throw roses into the abyss and say: 'here is my thanks to the monster who didn't succeed in swallowing me alive. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Whoever did not live in the years neighboring 1789 does not know what the pleasure of living means.
[Fr., Qui n'a pas vecu dans les annees voisines de 1789 ne sait pas ce que c'est le palisir de vivre.] ~ Charles Maurice De Talleyrand

In every country and region, there are practices and ways of living and culture that have been handed down from ancestors. Naturally, I feel that these should be respected. ~ Shinzo Abe

You can drink from all sorts of wells, but unless the source of your water is the Living Water Himself, you will never be satisfied. ~ Beth Moore

Here, then, is the point at which I see the new mission of the librarian rise up incomparably higher than all those preceding. Up until the present, the librarian has been principally occupied with the book as a thing, as a material object. From now on he must give his attention to the book as a living function. He must become a policeman, master of the raging book. ~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. ~ Jon Krakauer

God's religion is love and the light of love sees no walls. Anybody who unconditionally loves another human being for the goodness of their heart and nothing more is already on the right side of God. True honor is being truthful, humble, selfless and compassionate towards all living creatures. Those filled with discrimination, prejudice, hatred, egotism, and pride stand the furthest away from God. ~ Suzy Kassem

Dying is no big deal. Living is the trick. ~ Red Smith

Each of the actors is quite different, but they're all living in the same world. ~ Willem Dafoe