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Poverty Quotes

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Poverty Quotes

“The American system demands success, and in order to succeed we must first believe that we can. Yet our society, with its intolerance of failure and poverty, traps millions of people in positions where any kind of success seems impossible to contemplate, and in which failure itself is a kind of passive rebellion against their own misery and the social system which created it in the first place. To succeed it is necessary to accept the world as it is and rise above it.”

“Want is a bitter and a hateful good, Because its virtues are not understood; Yet many things, impossible to thought, Have been by need to full perfection brought. The daring of the soul proceeds from thence, Sharpness of wit, and active diligence; Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives; And, if in patience taken, mends our lives.”

Source: Delphi Complete Works of John Dryden (Illustrated)

“Inherited wealth may be something easily squandered, but inherited poverty is a legacy almost impossible to lose.”

May Loses Wealth Poverty Impossible Legacy Inherited Wealth

Author:Eric L. Haney

“it is impossible to attack the problem of poverty in the industrialized or the developing world effectively unless the extent to which poverty is a women's problem is recognized.”

World Problem Women Poverty Impossible Developing

Book:Working your way to the bottom: the feminization of poverty

Source: Working your way to the bottom: the feminization of poverty

“Like an odorless gas, [inequality] pervades every corner of the United States and saps the strength of the country's democracy. But it seems impossible to find the source and shut it off.”

Country States Seems United Poverty United States Democracy Impossible Source Corners Inequality Gas Sap

Author:George Packer

“Individual effort is almost relatively impossible to cope with the big problem of poverty as we see it.”

Problem Bigs Individual Effort Poverty Impossible Big Problems Individual Effort

Author:John Burns

“Extreme poverty threatens people's right to life itself and makes impossible the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms essential to a humane way of life.”

People Way Poverty Rights Impossible Essentials Extremes Enjoyment Humane Rights And Freedoms Right To Life Extreme Poverty Humane Way

Author:Daisaku Ikeda

“I was born to a black childhood of confusion and poverty. The memory of that beginning influences my work today, It is impossible now to photograph a hungry child without remembering the hunger of my old childhood.”

Children Today Remember Black Born Memories Poverty Impossible Influence Childhood Photograph Hunger Hungry Confusion

Author:Gordon Parks

“I've had two great years, probably five good years. So I had 20 years of just kind of uncertainty and suffering and ego destruction and poverty. All these things. There's no way I'm ever going to catch up to the misery years. It's impossible... If I don't do anything dumb or I don't get a disease or something, and then I've got to five to eight years I think where it'll really be great and then it will start to degenerate like uranium, you know?”

Ifs Thinking Knows Way Years Kind Two Suffering Poverty Five Impossible Ego Disease Destruction Misery Eight Dumb Uncertainty Degenerates Uranium Great Year Good Years

Author:Louis C. K.

“We should not think of poverty eradication as a matter of collecting money and giving it to the poor so much as of reforming the global rules that are disadvantaging the poor and making it impossible for them to fend for themselves.”

Thinking Giving Should Matter Poor Poverty Impossible Collecting

Author:Thomas Pogge

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.”

Soul Poor Attitude Poverty Impossible Goods Irreparable

Author:Michel de Montaigne