Barbara Ehrenreich Quotes

Quotes about:

• No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Peace, War, Patriotic

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1990). “WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”, Pantheon

  63 Copy quote

• When someone works for less pay than she can live on - when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently - then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Sacrifice, Example, Pay

  "Nickel and Dimed". Book by Barbara Ehrenreich, 2001.

  18 Copy quote

• I grew up hearing over and over, to the point of tedium, that "hard work" was the secret of success: "Work hard and you'll get ahead" or "It's hard work that got us where we are." No one ever said that you could work hard - harder even than you ever thought possible - and still find yourself sinking ever deeper into poverty and debt.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Hard Work, Secret, Finding Yourself

  "Nickel and Dimed". Book by Barbara Ehrenreich, progressive.org. January 1, 2010.

  13 Copy quote

• The Republican Party: a few million gun-toting, Armageddon-ready Baptists.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Party, Gun, Atheism

  12 Copy quote

• There is a vast difference between positive thinking and existential courage.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Positive Thinking, Thinking, Differences

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2009). “Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America”, p.13, Macmillan

  27 Copy quote

• Poverty is not a character failing or a lack of motivation. Poverty is a shortage of money.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Motivation, Character, Poverty

  "Time to Wake Up: Stop Blaming Poverty on the Poor". Essay by Barbara Ehrenreich, published in Maria Shriver "The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink", shriverreport.org. January 13, 2014.

  23 Copy quote

• Sometime in the eighties, Americans had a new set of 'traditional values' installed. ... the poor and the middle class were shaken down, and their loose change funneled blithely upwards to the already overfed.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Class, Down And, Rich

  14 Copy quote

• To be homeless in America is to live like a fugitive. The destitute are our own native-born "illegals."

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  America, Homeless, Born

  "Why Homelessness Is Becoming an Occupy Wall Street Issue" by Barbara Ehrenreich, www.motherjones.com. October 24, 2011.

  14 Copy quote

• The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Our Society, Facts, Poor

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2010). “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America”, p.221, Macmillan

  28 Copy quote

• What you don't necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour is that what you're really selling is your life.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Realizing, Hours, Selling

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2010). “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America”, p.187, Metropolitan Books

  5 Copy quote

• If there is no God or no evidence of God and certainly no evidence of a very morally engaged god, then whatever has to be done has to be done by us.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Atheism, Done, Evidence Of God

  6 Copy quote

• In fact, there is clear evidence of black intellectual superiority: in 1984, 92 percent of blacks voted to retire Ronald Reagan, compared to only 36 percent of whites.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Black, Intellectual, Facts

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1990). “WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”, Pantheon

  9 Copy quote

• Frankly, I adore your catchy slogan, "Adoption, not Abortion," although no one has been able to figure out, even with expert counseling, how to use adoption as a method of birth control, or at what time of the month it is most effective.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Adoption, Abortion, Atheism

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1990). “WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”, Pantheon

  64 Copy quote

• we are reaching the point, if we have not passed it already, where the largest public housing program in America will be our penitentiary system.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  America, Prison, Program

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2008). “Going to Extremes: Notes from a Divided Nation”, Granta Books (UK)

  13 Copy quote

• Marriage is socialism among two people.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Marriage, Eugenics, Two

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1990). “WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”, Pantheon

  17 Copy quote

• Jesus: a wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Jesus, Wine, Atheism

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2010). “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America”, p.68, Macmillan

  11 Copy quote

• What we need is a tough new kind of feminism with no illusions. Women do not change institutions simply by assimilating into them. We need a feminism that teaches a woman to say no - not just to the date rapist or overly insistent boyfriend but, when necessary, to the military or corporate hierarchy within which she finds herself. We need a kind of feminism that aims not just to assimilate into the institutions that men have created over the centuries, but to infiltrate and subvert them.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Military, Women, Feminism

  8 Copy quote

• If men were equally at risk from this condition - if they knew their bellies might swell as if they were suffering from end-stage cirrhosis, that they would have to go nearly a year without a stiff drink, a cigarette, or even an aspirin, that they would be subject to fainting spells and unable to fight their way onto commuter trains - then I am sure that pregnancy would be classified as a sexually transmitted disease and abortions would be no more controversial than emergency appendectomies.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Pregnancy, Fighting, Men

  11 Copy quote

• no job, no matter how lowly, is truly 'unskilled.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Jobs, Work, Matter

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2010). “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America”, p.193, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• The money that fueled the explosion of gluttony at the top had to come from somewhere or, more specifically, from someone. Since no domestic oil deposits had been discovered, no new seams of uranium or gold, and since the war in Iraq enriched only the military contractors and suppliers, it had to come from other Americans.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Military, War, Oil

  "This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation". Book by Barbara Ehrenreich (Introduction), www.huffingtonpost.com. 2008.

  28 Copy quote

• Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Clever, Favors, Evolution

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1990). “WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”, Pantheon

  10 Copy quote

• No one should be incarcerated for debt or squeezed for money they have no chance of getting their hands on.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Hands, Debt, Chance

  "Preying on the Poor: How Government and Corporations Use the Poor as Piggy Banks" by Barbara Ehrenreich, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 17, 2012.

  23 Copy quote

• We need a kind of feminism that aims not just to assimilate into the institutions that men have created over the centuries, but to infiltrate and subvert them.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Women, Feminism, Needs

  "Feminism's Assumptions Upended" by Barbara Ehrenreich, articles.latimes.com. May 16, 2004.

  7 Copy quote

• a great deal of the wealth at the top is built on the low-wage labor of the poor. Take Wal-Mart, our largest private employer and premiere exploiter of the working class. ... You think it's a coincidence that this union-busting low-wage retail empire happens to have generated a $65 billion family fortune?

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Thinking, Class, Retail

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2008). “Going to Extremes: Notes from a Divided Nation”, Granta Books (UK)

  19 Copy quote

• We need to brace ourselves for a struggle against terrifying obstacles...bot h of our own making and imposed by the natural world. And the first step is to recover from the mass delusion that is positive thinking.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Struggle, Positive Thinking, Firsts

  6 Copy quote

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