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Poverty Quotes

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Poverty Quotes

“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

“While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not. A study of the origins of 303 textile, railroad and steel executives of the 1870s showed that 90 percent came from middle- or upper-class families. The Horatio Alger stories of "rags to riches" were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control.”

Men Stories Wealth Class Poverty Study Middle Percent Myth Riches Executives Steel Rags Railroads Upper Class Horatio Textiles Rags To Riches

Book:A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

Source: A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

“Being Black and poor is, I think, radically different from being anything else and poor. Poor, to most Blacks, is a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor; those who struggle are middle class.”

Thinking Mind Different States Black Poor Accepting Class Poverty Struggle Middle Middle Class State Of Mind

Book:Sacred cows-- and other edibles

Source: Sacred cows-- and other edibles

“In a process that had begun in the 1980s and suddenly accelerated in the early 2000s ... [t]he peaks of great wealth grew higher, rising up beyond the clouds, while the valleys of poverty sank lower into perpetual shadow. The once broad plateau of the middle class eroded away into a narrow ledge, with the white-knuckled occupants holding on for dear life.”

Process Wealth White Class Poverty Middle Grew Higher Shadow Dear Clouds Rising Middle Class Broads Valleys Perpetual Holding On Rising Up Ledges Dear Life

Book:Going to Extremes: Notes from a Divided Nation

Source: Going to Extremes: Notes from a Divided Nation

“Middle-class-led reform movements, from the Progressive Era to the War on Poverty, have been marred by an elitist distance from the would-be beneficiaries of reform.”

Has Beens War Would Be Class Poverty Middle Movement Distance Reform Eras Middle Class Progressive Elitist Beneficiaries War On Poverty Reform Movements

Book:FEAR OF FALLING

Source: FEAR OF FALLING

“We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle-class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition.”

Source: The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations

“70% of children born into poverty will never make it to the middle class. The uncomfortable truth is that there are now a number of other countries with as much or more opportunity than ours. In fact, more people in Canada go on to surpass the income of their parents than in the United States.”

People Children Country States Facts Opportunity Parent Born United Numbers Class Poverty United States Middle Goes On Truth Is Income Uncomfortable Canada Middle Class Other Countries

Author:Marco Rubio

“Both poverty and wealth are excellent things, because they are extremes, but the middle ground is damaging to the soul.”

Soul Wealth Money Poverty Middle Extremes Excellent Middle Ground

Author:Pamela Moore

“We have a middle class that lives on a razor blade. So sometimes when you say poverty, you neglect a large portion of the population.”

Sometimes Class Poverty Middle Population Middle Class Neglect Portions Blades Razors

Author:Elizabeth Edwards

“It is in the middle classes of society that all the finest feeling, and the most amiable propensities of our nature do principally nourish and abound. For the good opinion of our fellow-men is the strongest though not the purest motive to virtue. The privations of poverty render us too cold and callous, and the privileges of property too arrogant and confidential, to feel; the first places us beneath the influence of opinion--the second, above it.”

“If we wanted a program to help the majority of the population, we'd offer loan guarantees to help poor people get access to reliable cars so that they could have a better shot at getting - and keeping - a well-paying job...A small amount of capital could make a much bigger difference in their lives than extra student loan relief for middle-class college kids would.”

“Hundreds of millions of people around the world have been lifted out of poverty with the creation of robust middle classes in India and China, which is an enormously positive development for those countries that also creates opportunities for the rest of the world.”

People World Has Beens Country Opportunity Class Poverty Millions Middle Creation Development India China Around The World Middle Class Robust

Author:Dan Quayle

“Given the fact that poverty is growing, more and more Americans are losing health insurance, health care costs are going up, the middle class is shrinking, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider. That speaks to the weakness of the opposition. People do not like George W. Bush. But I think it's fair to say that they are not flocking to the Democratic Party, or see the Democrats as a real alternative.”

“Poor people in America today (people who are officially in poverty) have a higher standard of living - in terms of medical standards, in terms of going to college, in terms of the way people live - than middle class people did thirty years ago.”

“Capitalism in the 19th century did not doom the worker to a life of perpetual poverty. Instead, they kept creating new and better-paying employments as the decades went by. They produced the wealth and rising income that resulted in the emergence of a phenomenon completely new to human history: a self-supporting and educated middle class that grew more and more as they lower classes bettered their economic well-being.”

“I hope we are able to shift debate over to the Middle East and change this debate to how we help the people in their home countries rather than believing we can be their relief valve for the poverty and the grief that`s in the world by bringing people here.”

People World Believe Country Helping Home Able Grief Poverty Middle East Debate Relief Middle East Valve Home Country

Author:Steve King

“Even when I was living below the poverty line as a novelist, I was still living better than 99.5% of the human population of the world. But in my little, soft realm of trying to amuse a few dozen middle-class people with my books and articles, I did struggle to survive in my own way.”

People World Way Trying Humans Littles Stills Book Lines My Own Class Poverty Struggle Middle Population Novelists Realms Middle Class Articles Dozen Human Population Living Better

Author:Jonathan Ames

“We come from an abundant, endlessly providing, always forthcoming, always giving source. If we would just stay like that, if we would be forthcoming and giving and sharing and allowing, excluding no one, then it wouldn't be possible to have wars in the Middle East, or poverty in Africa, or any of these kinds of things.”

Ifs Giving Kind War Would Be Poverty Middle Source East Allowing Middle East Providing Forthcoming

Author:Wayne Dyer

“Between 2001 and 2011, Brazil lifted 20 million people out of poverty and into its growing middle class, and in the last quarter of the twentieth century Botswana's gross domestic product per capita grew faster than that of any other country on the planet. The once-labeled 'Third World' is edging its way into the 'First World.'”

Source: Turnaround: Third World Lessons for First World Growth

“Colombia has a big market that is growing because we are elevating people out of poverty and into the middle class.”

People Bigs Class Poverty Growing Middle Middle Class Colombia Elevating

Author:Juan Manuel Santos

“Of course I had the parallel of having the early years of my life being spent during apartheid, and then having a lot of awful poverty going on around me while I lived in this bubble of middle-classness, but I was a child, and I only really started to (I hope) understand all of that fairly recently.”

Years Children Courses Poverty Middle Awful Bubbles Parallels Apartheid

Author:St. Lucia

“If you stay in the mainstream of life, in other words, you let in the suffering of the world that invariably enters all of our lives by the time we're in our middle years, when we've experienced a few deaths and read a few headlines. Famine, poverty, abuse, you can't keep that all blocked out. If you let those things teach you, influence you, change you, those are the events that transition you without you even knowing it to become more compassionate. In other words, you hold onto your values, but you do it much more inclusively, humbly and in an open ended way. Suffering takes you there.”

Ifs World Way Years Suffering Values Poverty Teach Knowing Our Lives Influence Middle Events Abuse Live By Transition Compassionate Mainstream Without You Famine Headlines Blocked

Author:Richard Rohr

“The Black public sector middle class teachers, policeman, firemen, and post office workers, those jobs have been on the decline but there hasn't been a corresponding increase in the private sector. What is especially painful is government policy bailed out the banks without making them make reinvestments for rebuilding. The result is 53-million Americans are food insecure, 50-million Americans are in poverty, 44 million are on food stamps, 26 million are looking for a job.”

“Wages never seem to go up. The whole economy feels stuck, and millions of Americans, millions of Americans, middle-class security is now just a memory. Progressives like to talk like Barack Obama likes to talk forever about poverty in America. And if a talk did any good, we'd have overcome those deep problems long ago. This explains why under the most liberal president we have had so far, poverty in America is worse, especially for our fellow citizens who were promised better and who need it most.”

“The Democrat Party makes as many people victims as possible because it freezes them right where they are. And that's usually in lower middle class or abject poverty. It makes them resentful.”

People Party Class Poverty Middle Victim Democrat Middle Class Freeze Resentful

Author:Rush Limbaugh

“The Mexican people are increasingly middle class, and Mexico has substantially become a middle-class society. This is true despite the significant poverty, and the class and geographic inequality that have deep historical roots.”

People Class Poverty Middle Roots Historical Significant Despite Inequality Middle Class Mexico Mexican

Author:Alan Bersin

“The key phrase used by the synod, which I'll take up again, is 'integrate' in the life of the Church the wounded families, remarried families, etc. But of this one mustn't forget the children in the middle. They are the first victims, both in the wounds, and in the conditions of poverty, of work.”

Firsts Children Used Church Forget Poverty Middle Conditions Keys Victim Wounds Phrases Etc Wounded Integrating

Author:Pope Francis

“The problem of the Middle East is poverty more than politics.”

Problem Poverty Middle East Middle East

Author:Shimon Peres

“In the richest country in the history of the world, this Obama economy has crushed the middle class. Family income has fallen by $4,000, but health insurance premiums are higher, food prices are higher, utility bills are higher, and gasoline prices have doubled. Today more Americans wake up in poverty than ever before.”

World Country Today Class Poverty Economy Middle Higher Wake Up Bills Income Fallen Middle Class World History Utility Crushed Gasoline Middle Class Family Gasoline Prices Obama Economy

Author:Mitt Romney

“Free enterprise has done more to lift people out of poverty, to help build a strong middle class, to help educate our kids, and to make our lives better than all the programs of government combined.”

People Done Helping Government Kids Strong Class Poverty Our Lives Middle Program Lifts Enterprise Middle Class Educate Free Enterprise

Author:Mitt Romney

“America is an enormous frosted cupcake in the middle of millions of starving people.”

People America Poverty Millions Middle Social Justice Enormous Starving Cupcakes

Author:Gloria Steinem