Quotes About Poverty

education is not the way out of the poverty trap. A high education level is no guarantee of high productivity. The truth of the matter is that regardless of institutional education level, workers around the world can be adequately trained on the job for high productivity.

The only long-term, high-confidence strategy for the world not to be overwhelmed by terrorism is for economic development to go so well that terrorists have no place to incubate or hide...Perhaps the easy step is for the United States to give recognition to poor countries that make the needed changes by themselves. Thus part of the U.S. strategy for global economic development should be "inclusion", rather than the "preemption" and "intervention" of the fight against terrorism.

And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.

Said I, "Not half an hour ago     Your Mother has had alms of mine.

Wo Hunger herrscht, ist auf die Dauer kein Friede." ("Where there is hunger, there cannot be lasting peace.) Speech before the United Nations General Assembly, September 26, 1973

Despite everything, they tend to view economic poverty as a barrier and a challenge, not a state of being.

You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.

No man can rationally live, worship, or love his neighbour on an empty stomach.

The cause of general education was retarded by the fact that the prosperous patronized private schools and the poor were indifferent. Agitation continued. One writer suggested that not only should the poor be educated, but poor parents who needed the labor of their children should be compensated for the time their children spent in school.

As for those ... who can obtain by lawful means whatever they need, how can we consider them poor?

In China we believe "rob the rich to feed the poor." But robbers here have no poetry.

Guardei o segredo da Catadora de Lixo e nunca contei ao filho que ela passara um longo tempo acompanhando seus movimentos. Mas nunca mais fui à casa dele, pois a Catadora de Lixo, cuja memória eu prezo muito, nunca atravessou sequer a soleira daquela casa. Embora ele parecesse tão abastado, ela é que era realmente rica.

I believe that it is not beneficial either to idealize Romani culture or treat it as exotic. Romani culture is not simply Indian or Asian, though some aspects of it clearly reflect its historical origins in India, language being one of the most obvious. Nor is it inherently a culture of poverty or a culture of resistance or defiance against mainstream norms.

Poverty, I decided, had nothing to do with fate; it was simply a state of mind. We accept the world as we see it; we believe it to be immutable. But if we look away from the misery even for a moment, another path appears, bright as a new penny, and so mysterious that we begin to dream...

For those beings with a broader perspective of Planet Earth, boredom is sometimes accompanied by a darker companion—guilt. We know that compared to many others, our lives are actually quite comfortable. We don't live in a war zone or in abject poverty; we don't have to dwell in the shadows on account of our gender or religious opinions. We're free to eat, dress, live, and walk however we like, thank you very much. But even so, we're bored beyond measure.

People are not embracing Communism as Communism, but they are discontented, insecure and unsettled and they embrace anything that looks like it might be better than what they have to endure. . . . It is very easy for anybody who has a job and is getting along all right to cry for democracy . . . but if you cannot feed your children and you do not know where the next meal is coming from, nobody knows what kind of freak you will follow."13

world of poverty and hunger and crime and disease and greed and dishonesty and prejudice and war and genocide and religious bigotry and runaway population growth and abuse of the environment and immigration strife and you-get-the-leftovers educational policies and a hundred other horrors?

Jargon allows us to camouflage intellectual poverty with verbal extravagance.

Our task (the rich countries), in our own interest as well as theirs, is to help the poor become healthier and wealthier. If we do not, they will seek to take what they cannot make; and if they cannot earn by exporting commodities, they will export people. In short, wealth is an irresistible magnet; and poverty is a potentially raging contaminant: it cannot be segregated, and our peace and prosperity depend in the long run on the well-being of others.

worse shape than you and helping the poor person. It's about a relationship between equals. You understand their suffering. You're completely in their shoes. It comes from softening our hearts, opening up to our own and others' pain. To me, that's enlightenment.

Beyond the edge of town, past tar-covered poor houses and a low hill bare except for fallen electric poles, was the institution and it sent its delicate and isolated buildings trembling over the gravel and cinder floor of the valley.

Societies accomplished important goals that still elude politicians, specialists in public policy, social reformers, and philanthropists. They successfully created vast social and mutual aid networks among the poor that are now almost entirely absent in many atomistic inner cities.

I never could stand racism or indifference to poverty. That doesn't make me a lefty ideologue. It makes me an ordinary American.

Every intelligent man saw the poverty that would follow the destruction of the beaver, but there were no chiefs to control it; all was perfect liberty and equality.