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Poverty Quotes

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Poverty Quotes

“The United States cannot feed every person, lift every person out of poverty, cure every disease, or stop every conflict. But our power and status have conferred upon us a tremendous responsibility to humanity.”

Persons States Humanity United Responsibility Poverty United States Conflict Disease Cures Lifts

Author:Richard Lugar

“And every historic effort to forge a democratic project has been undermined by two fundamental realities: poverty and paranoia. The persistence of poverty generates levels of despair that deepen social conflict the escalation of paranoia produces levels of distrust that reinforce cultural division. Rae is the most explosive issue in American life precisely because it forces us to confront the tragic facts of poverty and paranoia despair, and distrust. In short, a candid examination of race matters takes us to the core of the crisis of American democracy (p. 107).”

Source: Race Matters: With a New Introduction

“Isn't it sad, that in a time when we face so many devastating problems - poverty, HIV/AIDS, war and conflict - that in our Communion we should be investing so much time and energy on disagreement about sexual orientation? [The Communion, which] used to be known for embodying the attribute of comprehensiveness, of inclusiveness, where we were meant to accommodate all and diverse views, saying we may differ in our theology but we belong together as sisters and brothers [now seems] hell-bent on excommunicating one another. God must look on and God must weep.”

“What we try to do as Elders is help those who are trying to change their own societies and communities for the better. We hope that by supporting the good work that is being done, especially at the grass roots, we can help to alleviate the suffering of human beings. That is our core mission - to draw attention to the impact that conflict, injustice and poverty have on ordinary people.”

“When we look at a conflict, it is so often rooted in injustice, prejudice, competition for resources, poverty, poor governance and corruption.”

Looks Poor Poverty Conflict Resources Prejudice Competition Injustice Corruption Rooted Governance

Author:Desmond Tutu

“Poverty - the greatest cause of human suffering on the planet - is itself exacerbated by conflict, competition for resources, injustice, even the global downturn and climate change. Diseases like AIDS, TB and malaria cannot be tackled without adequate resources. So you see everything is connected. In order to address any major cause of human suffering, we have to work together across many fronts.”

“The planet's biggest problems have to do with sustainability, environmental decline, global poverty, disease, conflict and so forth. Really, they're all interconnected - it's one big problem, which is that the way we're doing things can't go on.”

Way Problem Bigs Poverty Planets Goes On Conflict Disease Environmental Sustainability Decline Big Problems Interconnected Global Poverty

Author:Alex Steffen

“We have to use all of America's strengths to build a world with more partners and fewer adversaries, more shared responsibility and fewer conflicts, more good jobs and less poverty, more broadly based prosperity with less damage to our environment.”

World Use Jobs America Responsibility Poverty United States Environment Conflict Prosperity Partners Damage Fewer Good Job Adversaries Our Environment Shared Responsibility

Book:Hard Choices

Source: Hard Choices

“We have the potential to help people out of poverty, out of disease, out of slavery and out of conflict. Too often we turn the other way because we think there's nothing we can do.”

People Thinking Way Helping Turns Can Do Poverty Conflict Disease Slavery

Author:Alicia Keys

“So the first thing you need to do about conflict is to prevent it, and the best way of preventing it is by dealing with the question of poverty.”

Way Needs Firsts Poverty Conflict Best Way Preventing

Author:James Wolfensohn

“The Cairo conferenceis about a complicated web of education and employment, consumption and poverty, development and health care. It is also about whether governments will follow where women have so clearly led them, toward safe, simple and reliable choices in family planning. While Cairo crackles with conflict, in the homes of the world the orthodoxies have been duly heard, and roundly ignored.”

“Racism is not nearly as important as poverty. That's the same around the world. What look like ethnic problems are really economic issues. If you look closely at all these conflicts around the world, they come down to poverty and economics and resources. The more poverty, the worse the war.”

Ifs World Looks Important War Problem Poverty Issues Economic Conflict Racism Resources Economics Around The World Economic Issues

Author:Marjane Satrapi

“We deal with our mind from morning until evening. This mind can be our best friend or our worst enemy. We should do everything we can to improve outer circumstances - remedying poverty, inequalities, conflicts, and so on - while also doing our best to achieve a state of mind that give us the inner resources to deal with the ups and downs of life.”

Giving Should Mind States Deals Enemy Poverty Morning Achieve Worst Circumstances Conflict Resources Inequality Evening State Of Mind Ups & Downs Worst Enemy

Author:Matthieu Ricard

“It is easy to romanticize poverty, to see poor people as inherently lacking agency and will. It is easy to strip them of human dignity, to reduce them to objects of pity. This has never been clearer than in the view of Africa from the American media, in which we are shown poverty and conflicts without any context.”

People Humans Easy Poor Views Poverty Media Objects Conflict Dignity Pity Agency Lacking Poor People Badass Human Dignity Personal Dignity American Media

Author:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“The life of the community, both domestically and internationally, clearly demonstrates that respect for rights, and the guarantees that follow from them, are measures of the common good that serve to evaluate the relationship between justice and injustice, development and poverty, security and conflict.”

Community Justice Common Poverty Rights Security Development Conflict Injustice Guarantees Evaluate Common Good Guarantees That Justice And Injustice

Author:Pope Benedict XVI

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”