Quotes About Poverty

They say 3 million people are looking for a job. False: all they really need is money.

When a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and honor are things to be ashamed of.

Thanks to Eleanor, Roosevelt was probably the only president in American history who had any direct familiarity with urban poverty.

Instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody is under the frightful necessity of becoming first a thief and then a corpse.' Thomas More (1474–1535), student at Lincoln's Inn from 1496–1500

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. --Aristotle

Why are people unemployed? Because there is no work. Why is there no work? Because people are not buying products and services. Why are people not buying products and services? Because they have no money. Why do people have no money? Because they are unemployed.

Pause for a moment and prayerfully consider your response: What breaks your heart?

Does the silkworm expend her yellow laborsFor thee? For thee does she undo herself?Are lordships sold to maintain ladyships,For the poor benefit of a bewildering minute?

Poverty of goods is easily cured poverty of the mind is irreparable.

Poverty is easy to bear if it is only temporary, easier still if it is an entirely voluntary burden.

There were compensations in poverty—so she discovered. You could talk to your neighbours and take part in their lives, and she found them more interesting than the people she met in the upper circles of society. They were real, and you were real. You could lend a hand when they were in trouble. . . . Another great advantage of being poor was that you had no servant worries, your home was your own and there was no need to bother your head about what the servants would think.

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

To me, the only way we'll see a collective change in this country is by listening to people who have experienced life in the margins of society, who have lived less privileged versions of my story, in systemic poverty and facing structural racism.

Southern Appalachians have been ridiculed since the country began. In fiction, they're usually depicted in a cartoonish manner. The region is poor, and very suspicious of outsiders, so there's a sort of 'us versus them' situation. They're easy to poke fun at.

Poverty is a very complicated issue, but feeding a child isn't.

Some very poor countries run great vaccination systems, and some richer ones run terrible programs.

You have to be very rich or very poor to live without a trade.

I learned at a very early age that life is a battle. My family was poor, my neighborhood was poor. The only way that I could get away from the awfulness of life, at that time, was at the movies. There I decided that my big aim was to make money. And it was there that I became a very determined woman.

A homeless veteran should not have to stand at a freeway exit with a cardboard sign. That's not okay.

Too many veterans are poor or near poor and homeless because of it.

Stand up for our sick. Stand up for our veterans. Stand up for the elderly. Protect things like Social Security. Stop allowing people to stick their hands in the cookie jar. Create opportunities for people who live in poverty to elevate themselves out of poverty with a hand up, not a hand out. That's what being a Democrat is!

Poverty should be one of the top concerns for any elected leader. It has a negative effect on almost everything we as society entrust our government to do, but it seems that those in the Republican Party find it is more politically viable to fight a war on the people in poverty than it is to fight a war to end poverty in this country.

Rio is an energetic, vibrant place, full of beauty and nature. But we face the kinds of problems any developing metropolis does - with pollution, traffic congestion, poverty. Distribution of green areas, for example, is not uniform. Madureira, the heart of the suburb in Rio, is a concrete jungle.

Arresting development, attacking science, and glorifying poverty is not the answer to the vices that attend prosperity.