Quotes About Poverty

Other families who are poor do what they can to get out of it. My mother did not. She did not utilise her resources. She had a degree. There was something she could have done, but she actively, purposely refused that so we could have this absolutely authentic experience of the worst of capitalism: 'See? Look how bad capitalism is.'

I was discriminated against because I was Jewish, Italian, black and Puerto Rican. But maybe the worst prejudice I experienced was against the poor. I grew up on welfare and often had to move in the middle of the night because we couldn't pay the rent.

The 1 to 2 billion poorest in the world, who don't have food for the day, suffer from the worst disease: globalization deficiency. The way globalization is occurring could be much better, but the worst thing is not being part of it. For those people, we need to support good civil societies and governments.

Speaking as a black person, welfare is the worst thing that's ever happened to us.

The worst thing to be in America and anywhere on the planet is poor.

Poor is the man who does not know his own intrinsic worth and tends to measure everything by relative value. A man of financial wealth who values himself by his financial net worth is poorer than a poor man who values himself by his intrinsic self worth.

There is no intrinsic worth in money but what is alterable with the times, and whether a guinea goes for twenty pounds or for a shilling, it is the labor of the poor and not the high and low value that is set on gold or silver, which all the comforts of life must arise from.

As far as we are concerned, we are ready to leave today, tomorrow, at any time, to join the people of Haiti, to share in their suffering, help rebuild the country, moving from misery to poverty with dignity.

I want poverty to end in tomorrow's Pakistan. I want every girl in Pakistan to go to school.

I don't come from a rich family - it's not like we lived in a cardboard box, but we didn't have a ton of money.

I mean that the time where we need International agreement more than ever on the environment and the rest, poverty we are breaking up our International Institutions and the rule of law and Tony Blair is part of it.

I don't think any person in America should die because they are too poor to live.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

I understand human needs. I grew up where far too many people lived day to day without elemental needs like food and shelter.

People talk about doom-laden scenarios happening in the future: they are happening in Africa now. You can see it perfectly clearly. Periodic famines are due to too many people living on land that can't sustain them.

People who work full-time in America should not have to live in poverty - simple as that. Too many jobs don't pay enough to get by, let alone get ahead. Too many people are finding the rungs on the ladder of opportunity further and further apart.

The Bronx, I remember, was a very poor neighborhood, but that was all that immigrants could afford at that time. Life was tough. I grew up - my father didn't have a job, but there weren't too many people who did have jobs.

There is far too much law for those who can afford it and far too little for those who cannot.

I think mental illness or madness can be an escape also. People don't develop a mental illness because they are in the happiest of situations, usually. One doctor observed that it was rare when people were rich to become schizophrenic. If they were poor or didn't have too much money, then it was more likely.

'Great Expectations' has been described as 'Dickens's harshest indictment of society.' Which it is. After all, it's about money. About not having enough money; about the fever of the getting of money; about having too much money; about the taint of money.

Not being able to afford many of the basic necessities to survive, I placed all my loans in forbearance, enrolled in food stamps and Medicaid, and took on part-time jobs anywhere I could find them.

In part because of my own journey from a council estate in East London to a seat in the House of Commons, and in part because my adolescence took place during an economic boom and the advent of new technology, I had assumed that over time we would all become better off and, as the white wristbands told us, we would 'Make Poverty History.'

I am positive that I would see the end of child labour around the world in my lifetime, as the poorest of the poor have realised that education is a tool that can empower them.

We think the way out of poverty is to view the poor as producers, and the Internet is probably the most efficient tool we have for tapping this capacity. Because you don't need roads. You don't need customs officials who are friendly. You don't need to manage shipping and delivery schedules. You don't have to worry about tariffs.