Quotes About Poverty

I've long held that you can judge a country's economic plight by the number of goats it has. The more goats there are, the more desperate the situation in that particular village, town, or country.

Anything we do to fight misery and ignorance and poverty, no matter how imperfect it may be, is still better than doing nothing at all.

It is in this way that we should approach the story of the pearl of great price: understanding that if we were to sell everything that we possessed in order to own a priceless pearl, then we would become the poorest of all, having nothing of value except for the pearl itself. We would not be able to purchase food or pay for shelter. We would be destitute. The only thing we would be able to do would be to sell the pearl. But then we would no longer have the pearl.

The paradox of the pearl lies in the idea that, in becoming the poorest of all, we simultaneously become the richest of all. The poverty is not then a first step toward the treasure; rather, the poverty is the very place where we find it. Hence, we can make the rather counterintuitive claim that, in the realm of faith, it is only in renouncing our desire for wealth that we discover it.

We need to recognise that what really matters isn't buying more and more consumer goods, but family, friends, and knowing that we are doing something worthwhile with our lives. Helping to reduce the appalling consequences of world poverty should be part of that reassessment.

Hebrew word for "charity" tzedakah, simply means "justice" and as this suggests, for Jews, giving to the poor is no optional extra but an essential part of living a just life.

Extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness.

Rather than being about money or material possessions as such, poverty is about the inability to participate actively in society.

Gradually, human societies started extricating themselves from the worst forms of oppression. Human sacrifice and deified rulers went out of fashion. Slavery was outlawed, and privileges were taken away from nobles. Human societies regained much of the lost ground. We are still not as egalitarian as hunter-gatherers --there are the poor and the billionaires-- but we are much better off than we were during the days of god-kings.

At times, when we had spent some time in a particular location and word had spread about our presence, people approached us for interviews. Surprisingly, these were often very poor or vulnerable people, typically women and frequently widows, who wanted someone to listen to their story, just for once. These were some of the most amazing conversations we had.

How many hundreds of times have I heard that argument, expressed by high-earning intellectuals, local and foreign: 'helping the poor is dangerous for they will become (or are already) dependent on aid'? Aid dependence, it seems, acts as an explanation for every negative social phenomenon. The rural road not maintained; the anti-erosion measure not adopted; the expression of hunger in a conversation – all due to aid dependence. Nonsense, and condescending nonsense at that.

Qué quiere que le diga? Gente tranquila, más pobre que las ratas. Aunque, tal como va el mundo, llamamos tranquilos a los que tienen miedo.

??tia mai s?raci au ?i chestii... idealuri... valori. Respect? fel de fel de lucruri. Cu cît e?ti mai bogat ?i mai sus, cu atît respec?i mai pu?ine chestii. ??tia au ?i un cult al muncii, care, între noi fie zis, e cumplit?, e un blestem, dar d? ?i unele satisfac?ii... Totul se pl?te?te ?i orice plat? î?i cî?tig? ceva. Eu am cî?tigat pl?ceri; dar sunt mereu tot alea. Te plictise?ti.

Recall the words of Alan Jones, dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, who writes, "We are impoverished in our longing and devoid of imagination when it comes to our reaching out to others.…We need to be introduced to our longings, because they guard our mystery." Ask yourself what mystery is being guarded by your longing. Are you taking the time to find out? The time for this never appears; it is discovered.

Poverty and desperation are the parents of ambition. (character Norm Woodruff)

Soon after their marriage, Julian got a job as a laborer in a Juarez clothing factory. Mercedes continued working in El Paso as a domestic. The poverty and crime in Juarez in the 1940s was extreme and Mercedes was unhappy living there. Because she'd been born in the States, she could, if she chose, live in El Paso. Julian was not an American citizen and could not move to El Paso until he was approved by the U.S. government.

It's material deprivation that starts all this off." "They've got dishwashers, Miranda," Billa said. "They're not examples of material deprivation.

If you fall into poverty, live that way without grumbling - then your poverty will not burden you. Likewise, if you are rich, live with your riches. All this is the functioning of Buddha-nature. In short, Buddha-nature has the quality of infinite adaptability.

The poor were downtrodden. The press told lies. Truth existed nowhere. Everyone was motivated by money.

belonged to the respectable class of society, but must have been poor; for he depended for support on a trade which he learned in accordance with rabbinical custom; it was the trade of tent-making, very common in Cilicia, and not profitable except in large cities.

My early childhood prepared me to be a social psychologist. I grew up in a South Bronx ghetto in a very poor family. From Sicilian origin, I was the first person in my family to complete high school, let alone go to college.

There is no burnt rice to a hungry person.

He felt his poverty; without a cent, without a home, without land, tools, or savings, he had entered into competition with rich, landed, skilled neighbors. To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

I decided I would go with them, but it would be at my father's house that I would eat. I would share his food, and his poverty.