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Poverty Quotes

Browse 6296 quotes about Poverty.

Poverty Quotes

“We will never end poverty if we don't tackle climate change.”

Ifs Ends Poverty Climate Climate Change

Author:Jim Yong Kim

“It is true that so far as wealth gives time for ideal ends and exercise to ideal energies, wealth is better than poverty and ought to be chosen. But wealth does this in only a portion of the actual cases. Elsewhere the desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption. There must be thousands of conjunctures in which a wealth-bound man must be a slave, whilst a man for whom poverty has no terrors becomes a freeman.”

Source: The Varieties of Religious Experience

“Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.”

Ends Poverty Luxury Republic Monarchy

Author:Baron de Montesquieu

“Charity puts and end to poverty; righteous conduct to misery; discretion to ignorance; and scrutiny to fear.”

Ends Poverty Ignorance Misery Charity Righteous Discretion Scrutiny

Author:Chanakya

“With my union project in my hand, from town to town, from one end of France to the other, to talk to the workers who do not know how to read and to those who do not have the time to read....I will go find them in their workshops; in their garrets and even, if needed, in their taverns, and there, face to face with their poverty, I will compel them, in spite of themselves, to escape from this frightful poverty which is degrading and killing them.”

Ifs Knows Ends Hands Faces Poverty Know How Needed Projects Towns Unions Workers Killing France Spite Face To Face Workshops Degrading Taverns

Author:Flora Tristan

“The ancient man approached God (or even the gods)as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the bench and God is in the dock.”

“The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC [End Poverty in California]. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to 'End Poverty in California' I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.”

People Thinking Ends Facts Use Bigs Running Lying Enemy Poverty Cases Fronts Vote Socialism Labels California Tickets Socialist Epic Slogans Attacking

Book:The Jungle

Source: The Jungle

“Those who are to follow the arts should have a training in what is called poverty. Given a comfortable middle-class start in life, the artist is almost sure to end up by becoming a bellyacher, constantly complaining because the public does not rush forward at once to proclaim him.”

Should Doe Art Ends Artist Given Class Poverty Middle Becoming Comfortable Training Should Have Complaining Middle Class

Book:A Story Teller's Story: The Tale of an American Writer's Journey Through His Own Imaginative World and Through the World of Facts, with Many of His Experiences and Impressions Among Other Writers--told in Many Notes--in Four Books--and an Epilogue

Source: A Story Teller's Story: The Tale of an American Writer's Journey Through His Own Imaginative World and Through the World of Facts, with Many of His Experiences and Impressions Among Other Writers--told in Many Notes--in Four Books--and an Epilogue

“What makes the Southern Poverty Law Center particularly odious is its habit of taking legitimate conservatives and jumbling them with genuine hate groups (the Klan, Aryan Nation, skinheads, etc.), to make it appear that there's a logical relationship between say opposing affirmative action and lynching, or demands for an end to government services for illegal aliens and attacks on dark-skinned immigrants. The late novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand called this 'the broad-brush smear.'”

“Like sex, poverty and power, suicide may always be with us. But like them again, the actual form is takes is essentially time-specific and culture-bound, not only in the past but in the present too. The people who took their lives, the paths which led them to that end, and the experience of dying in this way were deeply influenced by specific historical circumstances. Only by making a greater effort at historical understanding can this most secret house of death be made to yield up more of its confidences.”

People Way May Made Ends Past Form Culture House Sex Understanding Effort Secret Poverty Path Greater Dying Circumstances Suicide Historical Bounds Yield British History

Author:David Cannadine

“Republics come to an end by luxurious habits; monarchies by poverty.”

Ends Wisdom Politics Poverty Economy Habit Liberalism Republic Monarchy Luxurious

Author:Baron de Montesquieu

“We should know that Allah has created us to live an eternal life with no death, a life of pride and ease with no humiliation, a life of security with no fear, a life of richness with no poverty, a life of joy with no pain, a life of perfection with no flaws. Allah is testing us in this world with a life that will end in death, a life of pride that is accompanied by humiliation and degradation, a life that is tainted by fear, where joy and ease are mixed with sorrow and pain.”

Knows World Should Ends Pain Joy Poverty Security This World Pride Sorrow Eternal Perfection Ease Flaws Humiliation Testing No Fear Richness Eternal Life Degradation No Pain Tainted

Author:Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

“We can't end poverty if we fail to save the lives of our world's mothers.”

Ifs World Ends Mother Poverty Failing Our World

Author:Liya Kebede

“How like a railway tunnel is the poor man's life, with the light of childhood at one end, the intermediate gloom, and only the glimmer of a future life at the other extremity!”

Men Ends Light Poor Poverty Childhood Tunnels Gloom Poor Man Railway Future Life Extremity

Book:Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Source: Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

“If we could learn how to utilize all the intelligence and patent good will children are born with, instead of ignoring much of it - why - there might be enough to go around! There might be enough to solve our alarming human problems, to put an end to poverty, to stop waging wars.”

Ifs Humans Children War Ends Enough Problem Might Born Poverty Solve Good Will Patents Human Problems Waging War

Book:Vermont Tradition: The Biography of an Outlook on Life

Source: Vermont Tradition: The Biography of an Outlook on Life

“If I were a supervillain, I would end capitalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia... but I guess that's a little too obvious and not villain-y enough. Because that's actually being a superhero. I would break down poverty with my machete; I would end world hunger.”

Ifs World Littles Ends Enough Poverty Break Racism Capitalism Hunger Obvious Sexism Villain Breaking Down Superhero Homophobia World Hunger Supervillains Machetes

Author:Kathleen Hanna

“poverty is like a pain, dormant and unbearable as long as you don't move about too much. You grow used to it, you end up by paying no attention to it. But once you presume to bring it out in the daylight, it becomes terrifying, you see it at last in all its squalor and you shrink from exposing it to the sun.”

Long Ends Pain Lasts Moving Used Grows Attention Poverty Sun Too Much Shrinks Unbearable Daylight Exposing Dormant Squalor

Author:Gabrielle Roy

“It's come around to that point of view at the end of a long evolutionary process, in which the rule of law has slowly been replaced by giant idiosyncratic bureaucracies that are designed to criminalize failure, poverty, and weakness on the one hand, and to immunize strength, wealth, and success on the other.”

Long Ends Hands Law Process Wealth Views Poverty Weakness Point Of View Giants Replaced Bureaucracy Rule Of Law Wealth And Success

Book:The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap

Source: The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap

“Poverty is a bitter thing; but it is not as bitter as the existence of restless vacuity and physical, moral, and intellectual flabbiness, to which those doom themselves who elect to spend all their years in that vainest of all vain pursuits-the pursuit of mere pleasure as a sufficient end in itself.”

Years Ends Pleasure Existence Moral Poverty Intellectual Mere Pursuit Bitter Vain Sufficient Restless Doom Vacuity

Book:Works: The strenuous life

Source: Works: The strenuous life

“Look, we'll have to confront the pathologies of poverty at some point. We can deal with them cheaply at the front end, in infancy. Or we can wait and jail a troubled adolescent at the tail end. To some extent, we face a choice between investing in preschools or in prisons.”

“We cannot end hunger unless we end poverty.”

Ends Poverty Hunger

Author:Mark Winne

“It is not poverty so much as pretence that harasses a ruined man--the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse--the keeping up a hollow show that must soon come to an end. Have the courage to appear poor, and you disarm poverty of its sharpest sting.”

Men Mind Ends Shows Poor Poverty Struggle Proud Empty Ruined Hollow Purses Pretence

Author:Anna Brownell Jameson

“As General Eisenhower discovered, it is easier to end the Cold War or stamp out poverty than to master this devilish pastime.”

War Ends Poverty Masters Cold Easier Golf Cold War Stamps Pastime Devilish

Author:James Reston, Jr.

“What Chavez has done [in Venezuela] is that he has brought extreme poverty to an end.”

Ends Done Poverty Extremes Venezuela Extreme Poverty Chavez

Author:Oliver Stone

“When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.”

Long Ends Government Lasts Poverty Degrees Luxury Republic Monarchy Insensible

Author:Baron de Montesquieu

“For avarice begins where poverty ends.”

Ends Poverty Avarice Avarice Greed

Author:Honore de Balzac

“Abject poverty is demeaning, is an assault on the dignity of those that suffer it. In the end it demeans us all. It makes the freedom of all of us less meaningful.”

Ends Suffering Poverty Dignity Meaningful Assault Demeaning

Book:Notes to the Future: Words of Wisdom

Source: Notes to the Future: Words of Wisdom

“It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man - the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse - the keeping up of a hollow show that must soon come to an end.”

Men Mind Ends Shows Poverty Struggle Proud Empty Ruined Hollow Purses Pretense Pretension

Book:The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories From the Sketch Book

Source: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories From the Sketch Book

“The best way to end poverty is to simply give people work, which isn't considered 'sexy' among donors who want to fund a preschool or cure a disease.”

People Way Want Giving Ends Poverty Disease Sexy Best Way Cures Fund Donors Preschool

Author:Leila Janah

“Anecdote: The East End seemed to be in the grip of yet another economic crisis. ... By the winter of 1933, an army of the unemployed gathered daily outside the dock gates, desperate for a day or 2 paid work. .... There was no cushion, no disaster fund, no stashed savings, no government handouts no syrup that could sweeten the bitter pill of poverty.”

Ends Government Poverty Economic Army Paid Crisis Winter East Disaster Bitter Saving Desperate Fund Gates Pills Savings Unemployed Anecdotes Cushions Economic Crisis Docks Syrup Handouts

Author:Melanie McGrath

“That global poverty would end. That people would be able to eat. It's the worst shame in the world that people go hungry.”

People World Ends Would Be Able Poverty Worst Shame Hungry Global Poverty

Author:Chiwetel Ejiofor

“New technology lets you grow the resource pie, which is the only way you can get out between that pincer of rising consumption (as we end poverty) and environmental and natural resource depletion.”

Way Ends Grows Natural Poverty Technology Resources Environmental Rising Consumption Pie Natural Resources New Technology Resource Depletion

Author:Ramez Naam

“Love has no limits. Compassion has no party. It is the responsibility of every human being and every institution to end poverty and to interrupt injustice.”

Humans Ends Human Beings Party Responsibility Compassion Poverty Limits Institutions Injustice

Author:Shane Claiborne

“Many people theorize poverty, but so many elements of poverty, individually, for most people who theorize about poverty would be really difficult to even comprehend the individual things. Just take homelessness. If you are homeless, what does it mean not to have a post box where people can contact you; what does it mean not knowing where you're going to sleep at the end of the day; what does it mean not having a place where you can store what little you might possess. So dealing with homelessness in itself is a huge thing for most people who are commentators [on] or benefactors to poverty.”

“Ask every politician and leader: What are your plans to end poverty? What are your plans to protect the climate? What are your plans to eliminate nuclear weapons? To answer these correctly is to bring love into action.”

Ends Action Asks Answers Leader Poverty Plans Politician Protect Weapons Climate Nuclear Nuclear Weapons

Author:Jonathan Granoff

“You [Jill Stein] also believe in a full employment policy that was the majority Democratic Party policy in 1946. They actually passed a law to that effect. You want to end poverty and when people see how relatively easy it is to end poverty. And one way is to increase the minimum wage: catch up; it's been frozen for so many years.”

People Way Want Years Believe Ends Law Easy Party Poverty Effects Policy Increase Majority Democratic Employment One Way Minimum Frozen Democratic Party Minimum Wage Jill Stein

Author:Ralph Nader

“I came from a background where I was very poor growing up but I have never known poverty. My parents worked hard and they went to bed hungry, but they fed us. Then my father became an ambassador, so I ended up being driven by chauffeurs. And then we became refugees. After that, I looked at it through this "glass" of to have and have not, and at the end of the day, who actually helps, who actually steps up, who is there for you.”

“The poor is the central focus of my economic agenda. The poor should be strengthened in such a way that they get the willingness to defeat poverty. By helping the poor make ends meet while they remain in poverty is also one of the ways. I am not saying right or wrong but it's one of the ways.”

Way Should Ends Helping Poor Poverty Focus Economic Defeat Agendas Willingness

Author:Narendra Modi

“The best antidote to poverty remains simple - a paycheck. Policies like paid family leave, workplace flexibility and affordable quality childcare can make the difference for two-parent or single-parent working families who struggle to make ends meet.”

Two Ends Parent Differences Simple Quality Poverty Struggle Policy Paid Remains Workplace Flexibility Antidote Affordable Paychecks Single Parent Childcare

Author:Madeleine M. Kunin

“My attitude to peace is rather based on the Burmese definition of peace - it really means removing all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world. So peace does not mean just putting an end to violence or to war, but to all other factors that threaten peace, such as discrimination, such as inequality, poverty.”

World Mean Doe War Ends Attitude Poverty Violence This World Negative Definitions Discrimination Factors Inequality Really Mean My Attitude

Author:Aung San Suu Kyi

“The problem is neutrality ends in poverty, neutrality ends in choices that hurt people's lives. This administration is deliberately telling organizations that are there to help young girls make good choices, not to tell them what the good choice is. That is absolutely unconscionable.”

People Ends Helping Problem Young Choices Girl Hurt Poverty Organization Administration Neutrality Good Choices

Author:Rick Santorum

“Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time.”

Ifs Children Ends Use Together Social Poverty Disease Labor Bounds Treatment End Times Ending Poverty Labor Day Child Labor Cheap Labor Child Labour

Author:Grace Abbott

“If I had my way, I'd end all wars and poverty. We should all be more aware of what's going on in the world around us and less ignorant.”

Ifs World Way Should War Ends Poverty Ignorant My Way

Author:Adora Svitak

“To seek "causes" of poverty in this way is to enter an intellectual dead end because poverty has no causes. Only prosperity has causes.”

Way Ends Causes Poverty Intellectual Prosperity Dead Ends Causes Of Poverty

Book:The Economy of Cities

Source: The Economy of Cities

“We are here among you as seekers of refuge from our present-your future-a time of worldwide famine, exhausted fuel supplies, terminal poverty-the end of the capitalistic experiment. Once we came to understand the simpl...truth that earth's resources were limited, in fact soon to run out, the whole capitalistic illusion fell to pieces. Those of us who spoke this truth were denounced as heretics, as enemies of the prevailing economic faith. Like religious Dissenters of an earlier day.”

“Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilization. Socrates made the same point 2,400 years ago: "He is richest who is content with least, for contentment is the wealth of nature.”

People Years Mean Made Ends Certain Social Wealth Poverty Amount Civilization Years Ago Relation Invention Contentment Goods Small Amounts Social Status

Author:Christopher Ryan

“It always strikes me, and it is very peculiar, that, whenever we see the image of indescribable and unutterable desolation—of loneliness, poverty, and misery, the end and extreme of things—the thought of God comes into one's mind.”

Mind Ends God Poverty Loneliness Misery Extremes Strikes Peculiar Desolation Indescribable

Book:Complete letters: with reproductions of all the drawings in the correspondence

Source: Complete letters: with reproductions of all the drawings in the correspondence

“Maybe we are a little crazy. After all, we believe in things we don't see. The Scriptures say that faith is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Heb. 11:1). We believe poverty can end even though it is all around us. We believe in peace even though we hear only rumours of wars. And since we are people of expectation, we are so convinced that another world is coming that we start living as if it were already here.”

People Ifs World Believe Littles War Ends Certain Poverty Crazy Expectations Convinced Scripture Another World Rumours

Author:Shane Claiborne

“In the past, the poverty they shared had a certain sweetness about it. When the end of the day came and they would eat their dinner in silence with the oil lamp between them, there was a secret joy in such simplicity, such retrenchment.”

Ends Past Joy Certain Secret Silence Poverty Simplicity Dinner Oil The End Of The Day Sweetness Lamps

Book:Happy Death

Source: Happy Death

“I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor...I truly believe that when the rich meet the poor, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end.”

Knows Believe Ends Care Christian Church Poor Poverty Rich Tragedy Riches Great Tragedy

Author:Shane Claiborne