Quotes About Poverty

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. —FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

You understand. I know you do. Your people are starving, dying. Thousands are homeless. They can't make enough money picking to survive. Help me convince them to strike for better wages. They'll listen to you.

see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.… The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. —FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Oh, and they culled our names from the relief rolls today. If you can pick cotton, you have to. No state relief." "We heard. The growers bullied the state into it. They're calling it the No Work, No Eat policy. They're afraid that relief will allow you to feed your children while you strike for better wages.

We wouldn't have people like the big growers making all the money and people like us doing all the work. We starve while the rich get richer.

Never has the chasm between progress and poverty been so hauntingly large in this country as it is today. We are in the clutches of an economic depression so carnivorous and insatiable, it's eating the very fabric of our lives. We are sacrificing our children to it, our future. And no one, it seems, is listening.

Instead, Loreda saw hobos gathered around the train depot, wearing rags, their back pockets turned inside out in what were being called Hoover flags. A shoe with holes was a Hoover shoe. Everyone knew who to blame for the Depression but not how to fix it.

We cannot allow the rich to get richer while the poor get poorer. How can we call ourselves the land of the free when people are living on the streets and dying of hunger?

They passed a small dark-haired woman wearing spectacles who paced as she dictated to another woman, who was typing. "We cannot allow the rich to get richer while the poor get poorer. How can we call ourselves the land of the free when people are living on the streets and dying of hunger? Radical change requires radical methods…

I think it was Mother Teresa who said that loneliness is the worst kind of poverty

loneliness is the worst kind of poverty

The federal minimum wage is frozen for the entire decade, longer than ever, which translates to an effective pay cut of one-third for America's lowest-paid workers.

more than half of all houses in Mexico City are located in unhealthy, unsafe areas.

There is nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a great one. Poverty treads upon the heels of great and unexpected riches.

If poverty is the mother of all crimes, lack of intelligence is their father.

In all conditions of life a poor man is a near neighbor to an honest one, and a rich man is as little removed from a knave.

Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower.

Well, for a considerable time after you were born, you had no such reason for rejoicing in your form. You were then a mere cabbage-insect, a hairy worm; and you were so poor that you could not afford even one robe to cover your nakedness; and your appearance was altogether disgusting. Everybody in those days hated the sight of you.

From that blighted time came the saying: when bellies speak, reason is lost.

There are no poor men. Not even among the wretches

I know some people say I can be funny. But there is always a deeper meaning to what I say. I am a socialist at heart and have the interests of the poor in mind. When people see how I manage to work my way out of tough situations, it gives them hope in their own life.

Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. Act a charity sometimes. When a poor creature (outwardly and visibly such) comes before thee, do not stay to inquire whether the "seven small children," in whose name he implores thy assistance, have a veritable existence. Rake not into the bowels of unwelcome truth, to save a halfpenny. It is good to believe him.

'Tis unpleasant to meet a beggar. It is painful to deny him; and, if you relieve him, it is so much out of your pocket.

A system in a rigidity trap has high capital, high connectivity, and high resilience (Holling 2001). A system in a poverty trap has low levels or amounts of these three properties. A system caught in an eroding or lock-trap has low capital but high levels of connectivity and resilience. The fourth trap is the least well understood of these four and is called an isolation trap, as it has high capital or potential but is not highly coupled or resilient.