logo

Quotes About Poverty

I can't imagine what it's like to go through life without shoes to protect your feet, and yet millions of kids do it. That's why TOMS is such an incredible company - it gives shoes to children who need them!
~ Amanda Hearst
It's a disgrace that we have millions of people who are uninsured.
~ Colin Powell
Expanding the EITC can get us close to a universal basic minimum income.
~ Ro Khanna
Minorities have been hustling backwards from check to check.
~ Fat Joe
Americans should understand that 50%, or something like, of the kids in inner-city schools, often poor and often minority, don't graduate. And the ones that do don't necessarily have the skills to get a job. That is the biggest disgrace in this country.
~ Jamie Dimon
A criminal is undoubtedly a poor soul, who is punished for his poverty.
~ Thomas Bernhard
to serve God means to act with justice. One cannot pray and offer sacrifice while ignoring the poor, the beggars at the gates. But more radical still: if you have more than you need, you are a thief, for what you "own" is stolen from those who do not have enough. You are a murderer, who lives on the abundance that has been taken from the mouths of the starving.
~ Thomas Cahill
The mid-1960s also saw a change in the way a good portion of the American intellectual class chose to view poverty and welfare. Contemptuously dismissed was any distinction between a "deserving" and a "non-deserving" poor; such thinking was said to be terribly judgmental.
~ Thomas E. Woods
But the bitter thing is, that when I was rich I didn't need what I could have, and now I be poor I can't have what I need!
~ Thomas Hardy
in this attribute moral or æsthetic poverty contrasts plausibly with material, since those who suffer do not mind it, whilst those who mind it soon cease to suffer.
~ Thomas Hardy
È senza dubbio una disgrazia per un uomo che deve procurarsi da vivere, nascere con una natura realmente nobile. Un animo elevato condurrà un uomo all'ospizio di mendicità.
~ Thomas Hardy
For as Prometheus, (which interpreted, is, The Prudent Man,) was bound to the hill Caucasus, a place of large prospect, where, an Eagle feeding on his liver, devoured in the day, as much as was repaired in the night: So that man, which looks too far before him, in the care of future time, hath his heart all the day long, gnawed on by Fear of death, poverty, or other calamity; and has no repose, nor pause of his anxiety, but in sleep.
~ Thomas Hobbes
Oh, Men, with Sisters dear! Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives! Stitch—stitch—stitch, In poverty, hunger, and dirt, Sewing at once, with a double thread, A Shroud as well as a Shirt.
~ Thomas Hood
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. Letter to James Madison, October 28, 1785
~ Thomas Jefferson
Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed.
~ Thomas Jefferson
S?r?cia, cum bine se spune, nu este o ruÈ™ine, dar asta-i doar o vorb?. Fiindc? ea este cât se poate de însp?imânt?toare pentru cei ce au parte de ea, pe jum?tate cusur È™i pe jum?tate reproÈ™ nehot?rât, aÈ™adar în totul foarte dezagreabil?, È™i a te amesteca cu ea ar putea avea urm?ri nepl?cute.
~ Thomas Mann
Surrender your own poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you and offers you an understanding and compassion which are like nothing you have ever found in a book or heard in a sermon.
~ Thomas Merton
The proud man loves his own illusion and self-sufficiency. The spiritually poor man loves his very insufficiency.
~ Thomas Merton
A theology of love cannot be allowed merely to serve the interests of the rich and powerful, justifying their wars, their violence and their bombs, while exhorting the poor and underprivileged to practice patience, meekness, long-suffering and to solve their problems, if at all, nonviolently.
~ Thomas Merton
our material riches unfortunately imply a spiritual, cultural, and moral poverty that are perhaps far greater than we see.
~ Thomas Merton
It is here, in this poverty, that man regains the eternal being that once he was, now is and evermore shall be.
~ Thomas Merton
And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything
~ Thomas Merton
The more we are content with our own poverty, the closer we are to God, for then we accept our poverty in peace, expecting nothing from ourselves and everything from God.
~ Thomas Merton