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Poverty Quotes

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Poverty Quotes

“We do not hear the term compassionate applied to business executives or entrepreneurs, certainly not when they are engaged in their normal work. Yet in terms of results in the measurable form of jobs created, lives enriched, communities built, living standards raised, and poverty healed, a handful of capitalists has done infinitely more for mankind than all the self-serving politicians, academics, social workers, and religionists who march under the banner of compassion.”

“If I am practicing spiritual poverty, which says that I own nothing, then the problems aren't mine and neither are the energy and compassion pouring through my heart to try to solve them. I am just a link in the process. If I don't take anything personally, then I can do great work without flagging. The Dalai Lama once said, 'Try with all your might - to work very, very hard - to make the world a better place, and if all your efforts are to no avail . . . no hard feelings!'”

“I do not believe we can truly enter into our own inner pain and wounds and open our hearts to others unless we have had an experience of God, unless we have been touched by God. We must be touched by the Father in order to experience, as the prodigal son did, that no matter how wounded we may be, we are loved. And not only are we loved, but we too are called to heal and to liberate. This healing power in us will not come from our capacities and our riches, but in and through our poverty. We are called to discover that God can bring peace, compassion and love through our wounds.”

“And while we stand with conviction and courage, we must live with compassion. Amid a world with massive social needs around us, ranging from desperate poverty and orphan crises and millions of girls being trafficked for sex, to the degradation of marriage and the abortion of babies, we need to speak and act with selfless love on all of these issues.”

“No nation ever taxed itself into prosperity. You could afford your house without the government-if it weren't for the government. Character matters; leadership descends from character. If you commit a crime, you're guilty. Compassion is no substitute for justice. Poverty is not the root cause of crime. The Los Angeles riots were not caused by the Rodney King verdict. The Los Angeles riots were caused by rioters.”

“The death of American liberalism as a significant moral force can be traced to the point in when President Bill Clinton signed legislation that effectively ended the main federal anti-poverty program and turned the fate of welfare recipients, 70 percent of whom were children, over to the tender mercies of the states. With a stroke of the pen, Clinton eliminated what remained of New Deal-era compassion for the poor and codified into law the "tough love" callousness that his Republican allies in the Congress, led by Newt Gingrich, had long embraced.”

“People say what distinguishes us from the animals is that we think. Well, then why the hell don't we extend some compassion to those under tremendous duress? There's this whole idea that you work really hard so you can deaden your soul to the universe and enjoy yourself only in ways the Sierra Club will let you. But what about enjoying yourself by getting into the whole melee of poverty and racism and violence and murder and drug addiction? Get in there, roll up your sleeves, and do something! Nobody does it.”

“Yahweh demanded justice for the poor, compassion and equality for foreigners and refugees, systemic redress for poverty, structural mechanisms to protect the homeless and family-less from abuse and destitution, fair and equitable distribution of land, integrity in the judicial system, humility, simplicity and morality in the government (as opposed to wealth, women and weapons), etc. etc. If you want that kind of society, you need to be faithful to the living God.”

“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.”