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Poverty Quotes

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Poverty Quotes

“The point is that there is tremendous hypocrisy among the Christian right. And I think that Christian voters should start looking at global warming and extreme poverty as a religious issue that speaks to the culture of life.”

Thinking Should Christian Culture Speak Religious Poverty Issues Extremes Hypocrisy Global Warming Voters Christian Right Extreme Poverty

Author:Al Franken

“Countries should think of Haiti not as a place where to do charity but a place where to invest and do business. And doing business in Haiti means poverty reduction.”

Thinking Should Mean Country Poverty Charity Reduction Haiti Poverty Reduction

Author:Laurent Lamothe

“A beautiful woman, if poor, should use double circumspection; for her beauty will tempt others, her poverty herself.”

Ifs Should Use Beautiful Poor Poverty Temptation Beautiful Women Her Beauty Circumspection

Book:Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“The whole attempt to advance the kind of consumer society that depends for its growth on the ceaseless stimulation of unlimited covetousness among the rich, while the poor majority rot in their poverty-this is surely something against which a Christian should be a nonconformist.”

Should Kind Whole Christian Growth Poor Poverty Rich Depends Majority Consumers Consumerism Unlimited Overconsumption Stimulation Covetousness Nonconformist

Author:Lesslie Newbigin

“Richness in the world is a result of other people's poverty. We should begin to shorten the abyss between haves and have-nots.”

People World Should Results Poverty Abyss Richness Haves And Have Nots

Author:Eduardo Galeano

“This so much joy! This so much joy! If I should fail, what poverty! And yet, as poor as I Have ventured all upon a throw; Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so this side the victory!”

Ifs Should Joy Sides Poor Poverty Failing Victory

Book:The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

“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.”

“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.”

“There are no causes of poverty. It is the rest state, that which happens when you don't do anything. If you want to experience poverty, just do nothing, and it will come…. We should ask what are the causes of wealth and try to recreate and reproduce them.”

Ifs Want Should Trying States Happens Asks Causes Wealth Poverty Causes Of Poverty

Author:Madsen Pirie

“There are no causes of poverty. To ask what causes poverty is like asking what causes coldit is the absence of energy. Similarly poverty is the absence of wealth. We should ask, ‘what are the causes of wealth?’”

Should Asks Energy Causes Wealth Poverty Asking Absence Causes Of Poverty

Author:Madsen Pirie

“There is a saying that no man has tasted the full flavour of life until he has known poverty, love and war. The justness of this reflection commends it to the lover of condensed philosophy. The three conditions embrace about all there is in life worth knowing. A surface thinker might deem that wealth should be added to the list. Not so. When a poor man finds a long-hidden quarter-dollar that has slipped through a rip into his vest lining, he sounds the pleasure of life with a deeper plummet than any millionaire can hope to cast.”

Source: Delphi Complete Works of O. Henry (Illustrated)

“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

“Charity should be self-sustainable. That is, it should create more wealth rather than perpetuating the cycle of poverty and dependence. In this sense, the best form of charity would be providing quality education for children and more importantly, building a good character in them.”

“The real causes of terrorism are not poverty and oppression per se, but rather the bankruptcy of materialist ideologies, like Neo-Conservatism, which promise much but deliver little. The central doctrine of Neo-Conservatism is "democratic capitalism." This is the ultimate oxymoron, because in practice the political pluralism that should underlie democracy cannot exist in a climate of economic plutocracy.”

“If we are looking for one single action which will enable the poor to overcome their poverty, I would go for credit. Money is power. I have been arguing that credit should be accepted as a human right. If we can come up with a system which allows everybody access to credit while ensuring excellent repayment - I can give you a guarantee that poverty will not last long.”

“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

“The first time I received an award, I was very surprised. I did not know whether to accept it or not. But I came to the conclusion that I should accept awards in the name of the poorest poor, as a form of homage to them. I think that basically, when awards are given to me, the existence of the poor in the world is being recognized.”

Thinking Knows World Should Firsts Form Names Given Poor Existence Accepting Poverty First Time Conclusion Awards Poorest Homage

Author:Mother Teresa

“We must be afraid of neither poverty nor exile nor imprisonment; of fear itself only should we be afraid.”

Should Fear Poverty Exile Imprisonment

Author:Epictetus

“Above all things I entreat you to preserve your faith in Christ. It is my wealth in poverty, my joy in sorrow, my peace amid tumult. For all the evil I have committed, my gracious pardon; and for every effort, my exceeding great reward. I have found it to be so. I can smile with pity at the infidel whose vanity makes him dream that I should barter such a blessing for the few subtleties from the school of the cold-blooded sophists.”

“I think there are so many children being brought up in some form of violence, be it violence of poverty or sexism or racism or homophobia or transphobia. That violence takes a life to transform or overcome. I don't think people should be spending their lives dealing with that. I think people should be thriving, playing, creating, evolving.”

People Thinking Should Children Form Poverty Violence Creating Racism Overcoming Spending Evolve Sexism Homophobia

Author:Eve Ensler

“Now, you might say – “But why should we pay people for doing what they’re supposed to do?” It’s a fair question – but think of it this way: Every other anti-poverty program that’s been tried has failed to get the national poverty rate below 11 percent... Why shouldn’t we experiment with a program built around the one strategy that has proven time and again to work wonders – capitalism?”

People Thinking Way Should Might Pay Wonder Poverty Percent Capitalism Built Fairs Program Strategy Rate Experiments Proven

Author:Michael Bloomberg

“Through poverty, godhunger, the family debacle, I kept a sense of worth. I could limn and paint like no-one else in this human-wounded land: I was worth the while of living. Now my skill is dead. I should be.”

Should Humans Artist Poverty Land Skills Despair Paint Wounded Debacles

Author:Keri Hulme

“Capitalism with near-full employment was an impressive spectacle. But a growth in wealth is not at all the same thing as reducing poverty. A universal paean was raised in praise of growth. Growth was going to solve all problems. No need to bother about poverty. Growth will lift up the bottom and poverty will disappear without any need to pay attention to it. The economists, who should have known better, fell in with the same cry.”

Source: Contributions to Modern Economics

“I confess I could never see any good reason why dirt should always be a necessary concomitant of poverty.”

Should Reason Poverty Reason Why Dirt

Author:Willis Gaylord Clark

“Hope, and fear. Twin forces that tugged at us first in one direction and then in another, and which was the stronger no one could say. Of the latter we never spoke, but it was always with us. Fear, constant companion of the peasant. Hunger, ever at hand to jog his elbow should he relax. Despair, ready to engulf him should he falter. Fear; fear of the dark future; fear of the sharpness of hunger; fear of the blackness of death.”

Source: Nectar in a sieve and related readings

“To grieve for evils is often wrong; but it is much more wrong to grieve without them. All sorrow that lasts longer than its cause is morbid, and should be shaken off as an attack of melancholy, as the forerunner of a greater evil than poverty or pain.”

Should Pain Lasts Evil Causes Poverty Greater Sorrow Grieving Melancholy Morbid Forerunners

Book:The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume III: 1777-1781

Source: The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume III: 1777-1781

“Poverty should not be viewed by us as a humiliation and even less so as a position of honour or a fatality.”

Should Poverty Position Honour Humiliation Fatality

Author:Mathieu Kerekou

“Take the case of just actions; just punishments and chastisements do indeed spring from a good principle, but they are good only because we cannot do without them - it would be better that neither individuals nor states should need anything of the sort - but actions which aim at honor and advantage are absolutely the best. The conditional action is only the choice of a lesser evil; whereas these are the foundation and creation of good. A good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other ills of life.”

Source: Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation

“A job should lift workers out of poverty, not keep them in it.”

Should Jobs Poverty Workers Lifts Minimum Wage Living Wage

Author:Bernie Sanders

“Nobody who works 40 hours a week should be living in poverty.”

Should Hours Poverty Week

Author:Bernie Sanders

“The crime should be punished no matter whether poverty or wealth caused it to occur, because the crime is wrong.”

Should Matter Wealth Poverty Crime Punishment

Author:Ernest Van den Haag

“Let us never allow ourselves to think that poverty is an excuse for an invitation to totalitarianism, and if we should be tempted to think as much, let us remind ourselves that totalitarianism not only extinguishes liberty but institutionalises poverty as well”

Ifs Thinking Should Wells Liberty Poverty Excuse Tempted Invitations Totalitarianism

Author:Bernard Levin

“Common sense should tell us that reading is the ultimate weapon--destroying ignorance, poverty and despair before they can destroyus. A nation that doesn't read much doesn't know much. And a nation that doesn't know much is more likely to make poor choices in the home, the marketplace, the jury box and the voting booth...The challenge, therefore, is to convince future generations of children that carrying a book is more rewarding than carrying guns.”

Source: The Read-aloud Handbook

“...I swore I would battle not only for myself but for freedom and opportunity for everything living that wore chains, especially sex chains. It that meant poverty for myself and my boy then poverty we should have to suffer. If it meant social ostracism, if it meant relinquishing the literary success that lay within my grasp, then let the success go.”

Ifs Should Suffering Opportunity Social Sex Boys Poverty Battle Should Have Lays Chains My Boys Relinquishing Ostracism Social Ostracism

Book:A woman of fifty

Source: A woman of fifty

“Such is friendship, that through it we love places and seasons; for as bright bodies emit rays to a distance, and flowers drop their sweet leaves on the ground around them, so friends impart favor even to the places where they dwell. With friends even poverty is pleasant. Words cannot express the joy which a friend imparts; they only can know who have experienced. A friend is dearer than the light of heaven, for it would be better for us that the sun were exhausted than that we should be without friends.”

Knows Should Body Light Would Be Joy Heaven Friendship Poverty Sun Sweet Flower Seasons Distance Favors Pleasant Rays Exhausted Impart Without Friends

Author:Saint John Chrysostom

“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?”

“The hour when you say, "What does my happiness matter? It is poverty and filth, and a wretched complacency. Yet my happiness should justify existence itself!”

Should Doe Matter Happiness Hours Existence Poverty Justify Wretched Complacency Filth

Author:Friedrich Nietzsche

“Bolivia also depends not only on tin and other minerals, but also depends on the gas and oil. A rational extraction should be made, taking care of the environment. We should give added value to this natural resource, and generate revenue to fight poverty with more resources, that come from natural resources.”

Giving Should Made Care Values Fighting Natural Poverty Environment Depends Resources Oil Rational Gas Revenue Natural Resources Minerals Tin Bolivia Extraction Added Value

Author:Evo Morales

“The ultimate objective of subsidies should be to empower the poor, to break the cycle of poverty, and become foot-soldiers in our war on poverty.”

Should War Poor Poverty Break Feet Empowerment Ultimate India Soldier Objectives Empowering Cycles Subsidies War On Poverty Cycle Of Poverty

Author:Narendra Modi

“While we fight poverty in the Gulf, we also have to fight poverty across America. We should begin by returning to a promise once kept and now broken: If you work full-time, you shouldn't have to raise your children in poverty.”

Ifs Should Children America Fighting Poverty Broken Promise Our Children Raises Your Children

Author:John Edward

“Yet it would be unfair to the generality of our kind to ascribe to their intellectual and moral weakness the gradual divergence of Buddhism and Christianity from their primitive patterns. For it should not be forgotten that by their glorification of poverty and celibacy both these religions struck straight at the root not merely of civil society but of human existence. The blow was parried by the wisdom or the folly of the vast majority of mankind, who refused to purchase a chance of saving their souls with the certainty of extinguishing the species.”

“The true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for extreme poverty lowers the character of the democracy.”

People Should Character Poor Poverty Democracy Extremes True Friend Extreme Poverty

Book:Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens

Source: Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens

“By now, with all our modern technology, there should be no poverty left on earth.”

Should Earth Left Poverty Technology Modern Modern Technology

Author:E. A. Bucchianeri

“If a market exists for low-paid work, then we should think about how we can make this type of work more attractive by providing government assistance. Of course, the wage-earner must be able to live off of his wages. We will not allow poverty wages or dumping wages. But the wage earner can receive a combined wage that includes both his actual wages and a government subsidy.”

Ifs Thinking Should Government Able Courses Poverty Type Lows Paid Attractive Providing Wages Assistance Subsidies Government Assistance

Author:Angela Merkel

“The economic issues are most vital for us and it is of the highest importance that we should fight our biggest enemies - Poverty, unemployment.”

Should Fighting Enemy Poverty Issues Economic Highest Importance Unemployment Economic Issues

Book:Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri commemoration souvenir

Source: Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri commemoration souvenir

“Our motto should be: let us make peace so that we can concentrate on the really important work that needs to be done. That is, alleviating the plight of the poor and the defenceless, for as long as most of humanity feels the pain of poverty we all remain prisoners.”

Needs Feels Should Long Important Done Pain Humanity Poor Poverty Prisoner Motto Making Peace Plight Important Work

Author:Nelson Mandela

“Socialism's failure in the former Soviet Union and in the other socialist countries stands as a clean and unquestionable warning as to which path any rational and sane people should never follow again. Government planning brought poverty and ruin...Unfortunately, America is not absorbing the lessons that should be learned from the socialist experience and, instead, is following the same path of destruction.”

“Capitalism, the ogre of those protesting Wall Street, has suffered a public relations crisis in the wake of the global economic collapse. But any remedy to the systemic corruption that led to the collapse should not displace recognition that capitalism creates wealth. Capitalism, and no other economic system, has raised millions from poverty around the world.”

“The existence of poverty in the US should not be accepted as a necessary evil or insoluble problem, but should be considered a crisis requiring emergency measures. It is a matter of will and priorities, not a matter of resources.”

Should Matter Problem Evil Existence Poverty Resources Crisis Accepted Priorities Emergencies Necessary Evil

Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I had an extraordinary belief in myself. For years people told me to give it up and even though I was poverty- stricken, I never thought I should give it up.”

People Giving Should Years Belief Poverty Extraordinary

Author:Michael Caine