“We try to pay a man what he is worth and we are not inclined to keep a man who is not worth more than the minimum wage.”

Source: Meditations

1900s, A Square Deal (1903)
Context: It is not enough to be well-meaning and kindly, but weak; neither is it enough to be strong, unless morality and decency go hand in hand with strength. We must possess the qualities which make us do our duty in our homes and among our neighbors, and in addition we must possess the qualities which are indispensable to the make-up of every great and masterful nation -- the qualities of courage and hardihood, of individual initiative and yet of power to combine for a common end, and above all, the resolute determination to permit no man and no set of men to sunder us one from the other by lines of caste or creed or section. We must act upon the motto of all for each and each for all. There must be ever present in our minds the fundamental truth that in a republic such as ours the only safety is to stand neither for nor against any man because he is rich or because he is poor, because he is engaged in one occupation or another, because he works with his brains or because he works with his hands. We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.

Mark Twain in Eruption: Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men and Events (1940) edited by Bernard DeVoto

E.W. Howe's Monthly January 1912.

Pt. II, Lib. III, Ch. III.
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604)

Remarks by the President on the Economy, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois (24 July 2013) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/07/24/remarks-president-economy-knox-college-galesburg-il <br class="br">2013

Source: Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul

CNN Democratic Primary Debate