Home / Topics / Poverty Quotes

Poverty Quotes

Browse 6296 quotes about Poverty.

Poverty Quotes

“We do not hear the term compassionate applied to business executives or entrepreneurs, certainly not when they are engaged in their normal work. Yet in terms of results in the measurable form of jobs created, lives enriched, communities built, living standards raised, and poverty healed, a handful of capitalists has done infinitely more for mankind than all the self-serving politicians, academics, social workers, and religionists who march under the banner of compassion.”

“We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.”

People World Needs Natural Poverty Standards Resources Raises Environmental Destroying Natural Resources Standards Of Living

Author:Jane Goodall

“what about Christianity? Are we right in the face of so long a record of its poverty in international achievement, to keep invoking it as a standard, almost synonymous with civilization?”

Long Faces Christianity Poverty Records Civilization Achievement Standards International

Author:Rose Macaulay

“Where you find obesity, you'll find poverty. It's a reflection of the South's struggle to raise its standard of living.”

Poverty Struggle Standards Reflection Raises South Obesity Standards Of Living

Author:William R. Ferris

“The psychological pain--and the ethical shame--of American poverty are made greater by the fact that this country possesses the wealth and the energy to raise all children to a minimally decent standard of living.”

Children Made Country Facts Pain Energy Wealth Poverty Greater Standards Shame Raises Psychological Decent Ethical Standards Of Living Psychological Pain American Poverty

Book:All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

Source: All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

“Because my graduate academic training at law school was not one that included most of the intellectual traditions I find useful for understanding the conditions and problems that most concern me - anti-colonial theories, Foucault, critical disability studies, prison studies and the like are rarely seen in standard US Law School curricula, where students are still fighting on many campuses to get a single class on race or poverty offered - I developed most of my thinking about these topics through activist reading groups and collaborative writing projects with other activist scholars.”

“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.”

“Whether we want to own up to it or not, the welfare state has done what Jim Crow, gross discrimination and poverty could not have done. It has contributed to the breakdown of the black family structure and has helped establish a set of values alien to traditional values of high moral standards, hard work and achievement.”

“If farmers become weak the country loses self-reliance but if they are strong, freedom also becomes strong. If we do not maintain our progress in agriculture, poverty cannot be eliminated from India.But our biggest poverty alleviation programme is to improve the living standard of our farmers. The thrust of our poverty alleviation programmes is on the uplift of the farmers.”

Ifs Self Country Strong Loses Poverty Progress Standards Weak India Uplifting Farmers Agriculture Self Reliance Reliance Thrust Programmes

Author:Rajiv Gandhi

“We are living in the richest country in the history of the world, yet we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country and millions of people are struggling to put food on the table. It is my absolute conviction that everyone in this country deserves a minimum standard of living and we've got to go forward in the fight to make that happen.”

People World Country Happens Fighting Poverty Millions Struggle Childhood Majors Highest Standards Deserve Absolutes Tables Rate Conviction Minimum World History Standards Of Living

Author:Bernie Sanders

“The oil is a gift bestowed by God on the Arab nation, to use after centuries of poverty, backwardness and servitude - in raising its living standards, developing its economic, social and cultural conditions, and building up its own power to meet the challenges and conspiracies besetting it.”

Use Nations Social Challenges Poverty Economic Conditions Century Building Standards Oil Developing Conspiracy Saddam Servitude Building Up

Author:Saddam Hussein

“I would put primary emphasis on a good standard of living equitably distributed. It can't be equal, but one that eliminates the terrible cruelty of poverty.”

Poverty Terrible Equal Standards Cruelty Primaries Emphasis Standards Of Living

Author:John Kenneth Galbraith

“I have certain objectives. They're the same objectives my father had to give people a higher standard of living, to do away with the cancer of poverty, to eliminate the consequences of economic backwardness.”

People Giving Certain Father Poverty Economic Higher Standards Consequence Cancer Objectives Standards Of Living Higher Standards

Author:Indira Gandhi

“A few hundred years ago, perhaps 85 or even 90 percent of humanity lived below a standard of living that today only 40 or 45 percent fail to reach. But at that earlier time only part of this poverty could have been eradicated, and this at substantial cost not only to the pleasures of the affluent, but also to their well-being and to human culture. In our time, nearly all severe poverty could be eradicated at a cost to the affluent that is truly trivial.”

Years Humans Wells Has Beens Today Humanity Culture Pleasure Poverty Failing Cost Standards Percent Hundred Years Ago Well Being Our Time Severe Could Have Been Standards Of Living Affluent

Author:Thomas Pogge

“Socialism needs to pull down wealth; liberalism seeks to raise up poverty. Socialism would destroy private interests, Liberalism would preserve [them] ... by reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference. Socialism assails the preeminence of the individual; Liberalism seeks ... to build up a minimum standard for the mass. Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Socialism attacks capitalism; Liberalism attacks monopoly.”

Men Needs Individual Interest Wealth Poverty Mass Standards Capitalism Raises Privilege Socialism Preserves Liberalism Enterprise Rescue Minimum Preference Monopoly Raise Up

Author:Winston Churchill

“Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work.”

People Poverty Standards Ordinary Behaviour

Book:Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and Out in Paris and London

“The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people - people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behavior, just as money frees people from work.”

Source: The Orwell Reader: Fiction, Essays, and Reportage