The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest / The writings of philosophers, poets, novelists, social reformers, and others who have voiced the struggle against social injustice; selected from twenty-five languages; covering a period of five thousand years

by Unknown

The Rights of Man

By Thomas Paine

(English radical writer, who took a prominent part in the American and French revolutions; 1737-1809)

The superstitious awe, the enslaving reverence, that formerly surrounded affluence, is passing away in all countries, and leaving the possessor of property to the convulsion of accidents. When wealth and splendor, instead of fascinating the multitude, excite emotions of disgust; when, instead of drawing forth admiration, it is beheld as an insult upon wretchedness; when the ostentatious appearance it makes serves to call the right of it in question, the case of property becomes critical, and it is only in a system of justice that the possessor can contemplate security.

By Otto von Bismarck

(German statesman, 1815-1898)

I believe that those who profess horror at the intervention of the state for the protection of the weak lay themselves open to the suspicion that they are desirous of using their strength for the benefit of a portion, for the oppression of the rest.