I still do not understand how a corporation can have person-hood if it has no soul and never dies.
Jon StewartRead
Why is it that if you take advantage of a corporate tax break you're a smart businessman, but if you take advantage of something so you don't go hungry, you're a moocher?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques societal double standards regarding fairness in resource acquisition.
Jon Stewart highlights the hypocrisy in how society views individuals depending on their circumstances. He contrasts the acceptance of wealthy businessmen utilizing tax breaks with the stigma faced by individuals in need who take measures to survive, suggesting that our moral judgments can be unfairly biased based on social status and circumstances.
Themes
Tax BreaksDouble StandardsSocietyHypocrisyResource Acquisition
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on economic inequality and social justice.
More from Jon Stewart
All quotes →President Bush announced his new economic plan. The centerpiece was a proposed repeal of the dividend tax on stocks, a boon that could be worth millions of dollars to average Americans. Well, average stock-owning Americans. Technically, Americans who own a significant amount of shares in dividend-dealing companies. Well, rich people, that's what I'm trying to say. They're going to do really well with this.
Jon StewartRead
Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I figured this out. I know what's wrong with what we've done in Iraq. We've been following time as it goes forward. What a classic mistake. Linear time is so pre-9-11.
Jon StewartRead
You just have to keep trying to do good work, and hope that it leads to more good work. I want to look back on my career and be proud of the work, and be proud that I tried everything. Yes, I want to look back and know that I was terrible at a variety of things.
Jon StewartRead
If you don't stick to your values when they're being tested, they're not values: they're hobbies.
Jon StewartRead
Thomas Jefferson once said: 'Of course the people don't want war. But the people can be brought to the bidding of their leader. All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for somehow a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.' I think that was Jefferson. Oh wait. That was Hermann Goering. Shoot." [Hosting the Peabody Awards for broadcasting excellence at the New York Waldorf-Astoria, June 6, 2006]
Jon StewartRead
Similar quotes
The primordial image, or archetype, is a figure--be it a daemon, a human being, or a process--that constantly recurs in the course of history and appears wherever creative fantasy is freely expressed. Essentially, therefore, it is a mythological figure. . . . In each of these images there is a little piece of human psychology and human fate, a remnant of the joys and sorrows that have been repeated countless times in our ancestral history. . . .
Carl JungRead
Christ literally walked in our shoes and entered into our affliction. Those who will not help others until they are destitute reveal that Christ's love has not yet turned them into the sympathetic persons the gospel should make them.
Timothy KellerRead
You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons.
Jean RenoirRead
I have a theatrical temperament. I'm not interested in the middle road - maybe because everyone's on it. Rationality, reasonableness bewilder me.
Joan DidionRead
It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive.
Thomas MannRead
Even victors are by victories undone.
John DrydenRead