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Poverty Quotes

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Poverty Quotes

“The popularity of the famous device of the use of lands into England is said to be largely due to the mendicant friars of the then new Orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis, who, arriving in this country, in the first half of the thirteenth century, found themselves hampered by their own vows of poverty, no less than by the growing feeling against Mortmain in acquiring the provision of land absolutely necessary for their rapidly developing work.”

“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!'”

“It is said that the Negro is ignorant. But why is he ignorant? It comes with ill grace from a man who has put out my eyes to makea parade of my blindness,--to reproach me for my poverty when he has wronged me of my money.... If he is poor, what has become of the money he has been earning for the last two hundred and fifty years? Years ago it was said cotton fights and cotton conquers for American slavery. The Negro helped build up that great cotton power in the South, and in the North his sigh was in the whir of its machinery, and his blood and tears upon the warp and woof of its manufactures.”

“A lot of Democrats have said that raising the minimum wage is both good economics and good politics. The nonpartisan CBO issued a report today saying that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would cost the economy about 500,000 jobs...Why should we trust Democrats on anything when they couldn't have foreseen that this would be the case?”

“This is not about charity, it's about justice... The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty - I didn't say that, Colin Powell said that . . . In these disturbing and distressing times, surely it's cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than it is to defend yourself against them..Justice is the surest way to get peace.”

“When President Mbeki said, if you get AIDS, you can have a shower and it goes away. It's like, oh, come on. Or it's caused by poverty. We faced those kind of issues. But now, with the new regime, they have really woken up, paid attention. And when South Africa speaks, then the whole of Africa will listen. And I have got great hopes for that.”

“An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.”

“The Master said, "Wealth and honor are things that all people desire, and yet unless they are acquired in the proper way I will not abide them. Poverty and disgrace are things that all people hate, and yet unless they are avoided in the proper way I will not despise them. If the gentleman abandons ren, how can he be worthy of that name? The gentleman does not violate ren even for the amount of time required to eat a meal. Even in times of urgency or distress, he does not depart from it."”

“I grew up hearing over and over, to the point of tedium, that "hard work" was the secret of success: "Work hard and you'll get ahead" or "It's hard work that got us where we are." No one ever said that you could work hard - harder even than you ever thought possible - and still find yourself sinking ever deeper into poverty and debt.”