Quotes About Poverty

The tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self denial.

Those who have much are often greedy; those who have little often share.

I am completely penniless, and absolutely homeless. Yet there are worse things in the world than that.

You have never been poor, and never known what ambition is.

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

To be poor without murmuring is difficult. To be rich without being proud is easy.

If either wealth or poverty are come by honesty, there is no shame.

They will do; but they are not equal to him, who, though poor, is yet cheerful, and to him, who, though rich, loves the rules of propriety.

Insecurity is worse than poverty.

I must remind you that starving a child is violence. Neglecting school children is violence. Punishing a mother and her family is violence. Discrimination against a working man is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical need is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence.

Qual es lo peor: Que soy pobre o que soy americano?

But the old woman said that some have no choice. She said that for the poor any choice was a gift with two faces.

Glanton could see crouched in a corner a Mexican or halfbreed boy maybe twelve years old. He was naked save for a pair of old calzones and makeshift sandals of uncured hide. He glared back at Glanton with a sort of terrified insolence.

When you love poor people THAT MUCH, when you love 'working people' THAT MUCH, that makes you the freest man/woman in the country. - Cornel West in explaining that Obama is A fulfillment of MLK's dream not THE fulfillment of MLK's dream

Without some redistribution of wealth and power, downward mobility and debilitating poverty will continue to drive people into desperate channels. And without principled opposition to xenophobias from above and below, these desperate channels will produce a cold-hearted and mean-spirited America no longer worth fighting for or living in.

The Poverty Tour provided the opportunity to meet many people who had been living paycheck to paycheck even before the economic downturn. To so quickly slide from the great middle into the underworld of the poor validated our suspicions that perhaps these citizens never really were bona fide, middle class Americans. Indeed, some economists assert that the middle class evaporated decades ago.

The persistence of poverty generates levels of despair that deepen social conflict; the escalation of paranoia produces levels of distrust that reinforce cultural division.

Of course no on planned to give them pleasure — the poor were put into the world to work, not to have a nice time or look at pretty pictures. That kind of thing was for the rich.

Children working in the carpet industry often suffer from many health problems. These include breathing difficulties from inhaling the carpet fibres, arthritis in their fingers from tying the tiny knots, and growth deformities from working hunched over their looms for so long every day.

Their whole life depends on spending money, and now they've got none to spend. That's our civilization and our education: bring up the masses to depend entirely on spending money, and then the money gives out.

Money poisons you when you've got it, and starves you when you haven't.

And again, there was the wage-squabble. Having lived among the owning classes, he knew the utter futility of expecting any solution of the wage-squabble. There was no solution, short of death. The only thing was not to care, not to care about the wages. Yet, if you were poor and wretched you had to care. Anyhow, it was becoming the only thing they did care about. The care about money was like a great cancer, eating away the individuals of all classes. He refused to care about money.

The point is not: take all thou hast and give to the poor, but use all thou hast to encourage the industry and give work to the poor.

that curiously clean, semi-transparent look of the genteel, isolated poor.