Quotes & Sayings About Occupy Wall Street

If Occupy Wall Street can see their way to more collaboration with the union movement, then there will be a great deal of political action possible. — David Harvey

Barack Obama is Occupy Wall Street. Barrack Obama is plugged into that world. That's what he believes. — Monica Crowley

Occupy Wall Street means making Wall Street and the corporate power elite understand that the people affected by the binge of unregulated greed are not going away, and they are not going to give up. — Dana Spiotta

Conservative concepts believe in little government - take care of yourself, and that makes men who invent things like the constitution! Liberal thought has big government - we'll take care of you - and that creates boys and they create things like Occupy Wall Street! There's a difference between the way men and boys behave. — Brad Stine

Nobody wants to fall into a safety net, because it means the structure in which they've been living is in a state of collapse and they have no choice but to tumble downwards. However, it beats the alternative. — Lemony Snicket

Now, it's true that some of the protesters are oddly dressed or have silly-sounding slogans, which is inevitable given the open character of the events. But so what? I, at least, am a lot more offended by the sight of exquisitely tailored plutocrats, who owe their continued wealth to government guarantees, whining that President Obama has said mean things about them than I am by the sight of ragtag young people denouncing consumerism. — Paul Krugman

It isn't enough just to scream at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. We need our political system to start reflect this anger back into, 'How do we fix it? How do we get the economy going again?' — Colin Powell

The jobs crisis has reached a boiling point, which is why we see Occupy Wall Street protestors crying out for an America that lets all of us reach for the American Dream again - a dream that says if you work hard and play by the rules, you can have a good life and retire with dignity. — John Garamendi

You will notice that the Occupy Wall Street crowds - and the progressives who support them - focus on bringing the wealthy down to earth rather than lifting the 99 percent. They have a nearly religious belief that too much wealth is fundamentally immoral and unhealthy for society. — David Harsanyi

From the streets of Cairo and the Arab Spring, to Occupy Wall Street, from the busy political calendar to the aftermath of the tsunami in Japan, social media was not only sharing the news but driving it. — Dan Rather

There's a difference between an outburst of spontaneous anger, which doesn't have a political objective, and a more measured response that we saw in the Occupy Wall Street movement. — David Harvey

I love being down at Occupy Wall Street. The sincerity, the youth involvement, the desire for better, is palpable and moving. There is true caring, sharing, and refreshingly naive hope. — Elayne Boosler

At a certain point, we saw the police cracking down on the Occupy Wall Street activists. I won't call the actions of police appropriate or inappropriate. — Vladimir Putin

Here is what is needed for Occupy Wall Street to become a force for change: a clear, and clearly expressed, objective. Or two. — Elayne Boosler

I'm an anarchist and I do think things such as Occupy Wall Street are about getting a little closer to the solution. — Woody Harrelson

So far, the only major accomplishment of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters is that they have finally put an end to their previous initiative, Occupy Our Mothers' Basements. — Ann Coulter

We're going to fight this battle with everything we have, and we will probably lose. But then we will fight it again, and we will lose a little less, for this battle will win us many supporters. And then we'll lose *again*. And *again*. And we will fight on. Because as hard as it is to win by fighting, it's impossible to win by doing nothing. — Cory Doctorow

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the tactics of the Occupy Wall Street movement, it's easy to understand the inspiration for its anger as well as its impatience. — Eric Alterman

The Occupy Wall Street movement faltered when activists realized that traders were quite busy already. — The Covert Comic

Part of the problem with Occupy Wall Street was that folks were never really clear on what they were fighting for. If you don't know what you're fighting for, how do you know when you've got victory? In some ways, new media makes it easier for people to connect. It's hard, though, because we're much more seduced by the Internet, by big-screen TVs, by cell phones that can do everything. — Stanley Nelson Jr.

Thank you, Occupy Wall Street. With your vivid example of anticapitalist squalor, I've been able to convince all three of my children to become investment bankers. — P. J. O'Rourke

If you look at mainstream economics there are three things you will not find in a mainstream economic model - Banks, Debt, and Money.
How anybody can think they can analyze capital while leaving out Banks, Debt, and Money is a bit to me like an ornithologist trying to work out how a bird flies whilst ignoring that the bird has wings ... — Steve Keen

The evolution revolution is here. Global sense makes common sense. — Judah Freed

When you hear the party that glorified Occupy Wall Street blast success; when you hear them minimize the genius of the men and women who make jobs out of nothing, is that what you teach your children about work? — Artur Davis

Since the start of the Occupy Wall Street movement, CODEPINK activists have joined the frontlines of the non-violent Occupy movement across the country. — Jodie Evans

I think that rather than saying that Occupy Wall Street has died, we can say that they're in the process of understanding what the long march through alternative institutions might mean. — Henry Giroux

I locate a great deal of the power of Occupy Wall Street in the name itself, 'Occupy Wall Street,' or '#OccupyWallStreet.' It works because the name contains everything you need to know: the tactic and the target. The name is also modular. You can create your own offshoot in your own city. — Dana Spiotta

Unlike the Tea Party, who see themselves as the customers of government, people in the Occupy Wall Street movement understand that we are the government. Stated most simply, we are trying to run a 21st-century society on a 13th-century economic operating system. It just doesn't work. — Douglas Rushkoff

The rich get richer and the poor get the picture. I think this Occupy Wall Street thing is great. — Simon Baker

If Occupy Wall Street was actually a march, and people from all around the country could collect and march toward Washington, D.C., as part of this massive movement of people ... I think that kind of pressure is much more powerful than a sit-in that seems to be a little unorganized. — Scarlett Johansson

When I see the mostly young people of Occupy Wall Street - a mixture of the bored, the nihilistic, the seekers of excitement, the left-wing true believers, the confused idealists and those hoping to engage in violence - railing against the rich capitalists on Wall Street, I get worried. Because the hatred they express toward the rich is similar to that expressed against the rich by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. Of course, these people are not comparable to those killers. But class hatred must lead to bad things. That is why President Obama is playing with fire with his attacks on the rich. — Dennis Prager

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

I don't know about you, but I only have one life, and I don't want to spend it in a sewer of injustice. — Wallace Shawn

First of all, no candidate is going to win by catering to the alleged Occupy Wall Street vote. — Jim DeMint

Herman Cain told a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters to go home, get a job, and get a life. That's the Republican version of hope and change, ladies and gentlemen. — Jay Leno

There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning. — Warren Buffett

Occupy Wall Street is a real movement. — Russ Feingold

Occupy Wall Street is meant more as a way of life that spreads through contagion, creates as many questions as it answers, aims to force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the current economic system is broken. — Douglas Rushkoff

In 1999, the anthropologist Christopher Boehm addressed this issue in Hierarchy in the Forest, which reviewed the lifestyles of dozens of small-scale human groups. Perhaps surprisingly, he found that they are egalitarian. Material inequality is kept to a minimum; goods are distributed to everyone. The old and sick are cared for. There are leaders, but their power is kept in check; and the social structure is flexible and nonhierarchical. It looks less like Stalin's Russia and more like Occupy Wall Street. — Paul Bloom

I have watched Occupy Wall Street mostly from the sidelines. — Jami Attenberg

What you're seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they're directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society. — Colin Powell

Money is like a child - rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there. — Lemony Snicket

The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital. Hundreds of laws of Congress and the state legislatures are in the interest of these men and against the interests of workingmen. These need to be exposed and repealed. All laws on corporations, on taxation, on trusts, wills, descent, and the like, need examination and extensive change. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations. — Rutherford B. Hayes

It's obvious that a lot of Tea Party members tend to be elderly. You've seen that famous sign, 'Tell the government to keep its hands off my Medicare.' And I think as long as the government does keep its hands off their Medicare, they're fine with talking about low taxes. But once they start to realize that the Republicans really do want to not just cut Medicare, but essentially abolish it, you know, I just think those people are not going to be part of the Tea Party. They're going to be over with Occupy Wall Street. — Bruce Bartlett

I think this Occupy Wall Street thing is great. I think that is a good thing and that people need to stand up, voice their opinions, and be heard. — Simon Baker

To understand Occupy Wall Street, you have to understand artists. Art is freedom - freedom of expression - and its message has resonated through society for centuries. — Peter M. Brant

The Occupy Wall Street project feels like a burning ember that might light the torch of justice and inflame our longing for freedom. — James A. Forbes

Eading a book doesn't mean just turning the pages. It means thinking about it, identifying parts that you want to go back to, asking how to place it in a broader context, pursuing the ideas. There's no point in reading a book if you let it pass before your eyes and then forget about it ten minutes later. Reading a book is an intellectual exercise, which stimulates thought, questions, imagination. — Noam Chomsky

I was involved in Occupy Wall Street as a participant and poster artist. 'Shell Game' is an attempt to do something bigger, to use whatever artistic powers I have to explore the excitements and betrayals of that year. — Molly Crabapple

Internet companies created the social-media tools that fueled the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street insurgencies, and that have helped political candidates rally grass-roots support. — Rebecca MacKinnon

The new social question is: democracy or the rule of the financial markets. We are currently witnessing the end of an era. The neoliberal ideology has failed worldwide. The U.S. movement Occupy Wall Street is a good example of this. — Sigmar Gabriel

When Occupy Wall Street happened, I took my money out of Citibank. I already had problems with all the banks - Citibank, Bank of America - but I was kind of just too lazy to take my money out until I saw how Citibank responded to Occupy Wall Street. — Talib Kweli

I have a lot of sympathy with the ideas and frustration of the Occupy movement. I absolutely agree with the sense that Wall Street has brought an economic calamity to the middle class and that no one has been held accountable. — Susan Bysiewicz

I want to remind the viewers that people like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama endorsed the Occupy Wall Street movement which is actually full of anarchists. — Katie Pavlich

The behavior of the Occupy Wall Street protesters has raised some curious questions about the continuing double standards in our society. When it comes to fascistic leftist behavior, our mainstream media overlooks and excuses it - while conservatives are demonized and blamed for every dead sparrow that falls from the sky. — Jamie Glazov

Occupy has to continue as a bold, in-your-face movement - occupying banks, corporate headquarters, board meetings, campuses and Wall Street itself. We need weekly - if not daily - nonviolent assaults right on Wall Street. — Michael Moore

I guess that's why they call it Hell. — Jack Nicklaus

The Occupy Wall Street protests at last suggest that America's wealth gap is once again becoming an organizing political principle in the country. — Jon Meacham

Occupy Wall Street didn't just spring from the earth organically, out of thin air. This was all part of the global socialist movement. — Monica Crowley

I don't know what they are protesting at Occupy Wall Street but I'm on their side. But 10,000 protestors and one Porta Potty? — David Letterman

Occupy Wall Street was a disorganized movement without a clear focus and power base - essential in any successful revolution - but the message was clear: the divisions between those who are fortunate enough to enjoy city living as opposed to those who find it unbearable are too wide. — Janine Di Giovanni

In the same way that Occupy Wall Street forever elevated that concept of income inequality, the Black Lives Matter protesters have elevated the idea of inequity in policing as it relates to minority communities. — Charles M. Blow

Matt asked me to join the Upright Citizens Brigade, a relatively young sketch group. They needed a girl. I had heard of their shows around town, which seemed like a mixture of improvisation and performance art. They had done a show where each member sat on a street corner and had a Thanksgiving dinner. They did a show where they pretended a member was committing suicide. They did a show where they took an audience member for a virtual-reality tour out into the streets of Chicago. Most of their stuff was about getting the audience out of their chairs and out of their comfort zone. The Upright Citizens Brigade name came from a fake big bad corporation that was mentioned in one of their shows. The idea was this group had co-opted the name and was causing chaos on purpose - picture Occupy Wall Street if they renamed themselves "Halliburton Inc." Like I said, Matt had big ideas. He had a big plan for the UCB and I wanted to be part of it. I grabbed his coattails and held on tight. — Amy Poehler

Listen in close, Wall Street Conquistadors, you're spreading like vapor up through people's floors, you're moving en masse under the cracks of our doors and grabbing our children to work in your stores, feeding the needy to make them your whores, but you need to remember the grave you're digging is yours. — Trevor D. Richardson

The only good political movement I've seen lately was Occupy Wall Street. They had no leaders, which was genius. But unfortunately it always ends up with some hippy playing a flute. — John Lydon

The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous and secretive economic and political force in America. — Bernie Sanders

Yesterday the CEO of Citigroup said that he can understand why all these Occupy Wall Street protesters are so frustrated. In fact, he felt so bad for them, he gave himself a $10 million sympathy bonus. — Jimmy Fallon

When the world is mine, then you all will be the 99.9%. — Scott Jonathan Nixon