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Poverty Quotes

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Poverty Quotes

“Most of us still believe in the intrinsic value of nature, but I think the first century of the environmental/conservation movement demonstrated pretty clearly that this value cannot compel a civilization-wide shift toward sustainable behavior and enterprise when stacked up against the urgent economic and social needs of 7 billion people, most of whom are struggling to get out of poverty.”

“Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, of sickness, or captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable; nor does it appear that the happiest lot of terrestrial existence can set us above the want of this general blessing; or that life, when the gifts of nature and of fortune are accumulated upon it, would not still be wretched, were it not elevated and delighted by the expectation of some new possession, of some enjoyment yet behind, by which the wish shall at last be satisfied, and the heart filled up to its utmost extent.”

Source: The Beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous : to which are Now Added, Biographical Anecdotes of the Doctor, Selected from the Works of Mrs. Piozzi, His Life, Recently Published by Mr. Boswell, and Other Authentic Testimonies : Also His Will, and the Sermon He Wrote for the Late Doctor Dodd

“Don't be deceived when our Revolution has been finally stamped out and they tell you things are better now Even if there's no poverty to be seen because the poverty's been hidden even if you ever got more wages and could afford to buy more of these new and useless goods which these new industries foist on you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much that is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you”

Ifs Has Beens Stills Seems Poverty Revolution Industry Useless Goods Wages Deceived Slogans Better Now

Book:Marat/Sade ; The Investigation ; and The Shadow of the Body of the Coachman

Source: Marat/Sade ; The Investigation ; and The Shadow of the Body of the Coachman

“I still can't go over a subway grating without looking down to see if there is some money there.”

Ifs Stills Poverty Subway Looking Down

Author:Eartha Kitt

“We are still a country where hard work and perseverance can earn you a better life... Yet we are rightfully troubled that many of our people are still caught in what seems to be a pervasive, unending financial struggle... every American deserves an equal opportunity to achieve success.”

People Stills Country Hard Seems Opportunity Poverty Struggle Achieve Hard Work Equal Deserve Perseverance Financial Caught Better Life Equal Opportunity Unending

Author:Marco Rubio

“America is still the land of opportunity for most, but it is not a land of opportunity for all. If we are to remain an exceptional nation, we must close this gap in opportunity.”

Ifs Stills America Opportunity Nations Poverty Land Gaps Exceptional Land Of Opportunity

Author:Marco Rubio

“For most Black people there is still poverty and desperation. The Ghettos still exist, and the proportion of Blacks in prison is still much greater than Whites. Today, there is less overt racism, but the economic injustices create an "institutional racism" which exists even while more Blacks are in high places, such as Condoleeza Rice in Bush's Administration and Obama running for President.”

“The worst of this ever growing cancer of Statism [ie big 'paternal' government - socialism, communism and fascism] is its moral effect. The country is rich enough to stand its frightful economic wastage for a long time yet, and still prosper, but it is already so poverty-stricken in its moral resources that the present drain will quickly run them out.”

“My mother saved our home with a minimum wage job. But in the 1960s, a minimum wage job would support a family of three above the poverty line. Not today. Not even close. I understood right then that people can work hard, they can play by the rules, and they can still take a hard smack.”

“We grew up as poor people but we never knew poverty. I still love and miss the Somalia I grew up in. Things changed, when my father became a diplomat later on.”

People Stills Father Poor Poverty Missing Changed Grew Grew Up Poor People Things Change Diplomats Somalia

Author:Iman Abdulmajid

“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.”

“I had several teachers who inspired me, in both the public school system and the Upward Bound program. I needed several, because I lived in such abject poverty and dysfunction. And they're still in my life today, because I consider them to be friends, actually.”

Stills Today School Poverty Teacher Needed Program Inspired Bounds Public School School System Dysfunction

Author:Viola Davis

“I know that in the rap game you've got a lot of people, that come from poverty, was born in poverty and if it wasn't for hiphop they'd still be living in that. So when I think of hiphop, I think hiphop saves lifes, hiphop changes lives.”

People Ifs Thinking Knows Stills Games Born Poverty Rap Life Changing

Author:Jon Connor

“Anything we do to fight misery and ignorance and poverty, no matter how imperfect it may be, is still better than doing nothing at all.”

May Stills Matter Fighting Poverty Ignorance Misery Imperfect Doing Nothing

Book:The Philosopher's Kiss: A Novel

Source: The Philosopher's Kiss: A Novel

“Political systems must love poverty-they produce so much of it. Poor people make easier targets for a demagogue. No Mao or even Jiang Zemin is likely to arise on the New York Stock Exchange floor. And politicians in democracies benefit from destitution, too. The US has had a broad range of poverty programs for 30 years. Those programs have failed. Millions of people are still poor. And those people vote for politicians who favor keeping the poverty programs in place. There's a conspiracy theory in there somewhere.”

Source: Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics

“The scientific community having made a rapid ascent from deep poverty to great affluence, from academe's cloisters to Washington's high councils, still tends to be a bit excitable - not unlike a nouveau riche in a fluctuating market.”

Made Stills Bits Community Poverty Council Rapids Affluence Ascent Nouveau Riche

Book:The Politics of Pure Science

Source: The Politics of Pure Science

“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

“What inspired me most was the resilience of the Cambodian people. The country is still living with the trauma of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime. People lost everything - family, friends. The rich culture of Cambodia was nearly extinguished. They are a nation of survivors. And while poverty and infant mortality affect a disproportionate amount of the people there, those I met were hopeful for the future and doing the best they can with what they had.”

“Chile has done a lot to rid itself of poverty, especially extreme poverty, since the return to democracy. But we still have a ways to go toward greater equity. This country does not have a neoliberal economic model anymore. We have put in place a lot of policies that will ensure that economic growth goes hand in hand with social justice.”

“I believe that what I've worked for - women and children, civil rights against poverty, trying to level the playing field for people to have a better chance - is what I still believe is important and what I'm trying to do today.”

People Trying Believe Children Stills Important Today I Believe Chance Levels Poverty Rights Fields Civil Rights Chances Are I Still Believe Playing Fields

Author:Hillary Clinton

“What do you think this very difficult situation will push? Especially in the hearts of those who are facing the starvation, facing the unemployment, facing this siege, facing the tragedy of their families - the poverty of their families. Some of them, they didn't find food to eat. What do you expect from them? In spite of death, our people are still patient. But patience has limits.”

People Thinking Heart Stills Difficult Situation Poverty Limits Tragedy Patient Spite Unemployment Starvation Siege Difficult Situations

Author:Yasser Arafat

“India has, of course, aspirations of getting out of its poverty, ignorance, and disease which still afflict millions of people. But I do believe that we have something to offer to the rest of the world, including the United States.”

People World Believe Stills States Courses United Poverty Millions United States Ignorance Offers Disease India Including Aspiration

Author:Manmohan Singh

“We are herding the young in that direction so that they are not sitting still and contemplating, Goddamn it, a page of exquisite prose by Charles Dickens, which is filled with rage about poverty and the need of a household to survive. That's not in the table for consideration now. And people don't understand that beautiful rage of Dickens because they don't share it. They haven't got time to worry about an oppressed culture, a subclass.”

“Average wages now are still just barely above poverty, and one out of three Americans cannot afford healthcare even with the insurance,with jobs.”

Stills Jobs Three Poverty Average Healthcare Wages

Author:Jill Stein

“I want us to raise the national minimum wage, because people who live in poverty should not - who work full-time should not still be in poverty.”

People Want Should Stills Poverty Raises Minimum Want U Minimum Wage

Author:Hillary Clinton

“For me the only point that has remained unchanged through the years is that in India there is still so much poverty.”

Years Stills Poverty India Through The Years

Author:Indira Gandhi

“I visited the Ethiopian National Project which was created by the government to fully integrate Ethiopian Jews into Israel's society. They're still facing a lot of challenges with poverty, unemployment but the Ethiopian National Project is really doing an extraordinary job in empowering the Ethiopian community to be successful.”

Stills Government Jobs Community Challenges Poverty Successful Projects Extraordinary Jew Israel Empowering Being Successful Unemployment Integrating

Author:Cory Booker

“Care work is still primarily done by women for free in families and for poverty wages in the market, and this is a major reason that worldwide women are the mass of the poor and the poorest of the poor.”

Stills Reason Done Care Poor Poverty Majors Mass Wages Poorest

Author:Riane Eisler

“When I got the women's marathon into the Olympics and we had races all over the world I thought, 'That's great, now we're heading towards total equality.' Then you see that there are women who are still not allowed to drive, get an education, or travel unless they have a male companion or can't carry their passport. There are those who are mired with incredible poverty in North Africa, the mid-east, South East Asia and there's a ridiculous amount of human trafficking.”

“I think America the symbol and America the notion are still very different from America the nation. What's touching and almost regenerative is that whatever is happening in the reality of America, where there is a murder rate worse than Lebanon's and where there is so much homelessness and poverty, still America will be a shorthand throughout the world for everything that is young and modern and free.”

Thinking World Stills Different Reality America Young Nations Poverty Modern Happenings Murder Notion Rate Symbols Touching Homelessness Lebanon Shorthand

Author:Pico Iyer

“Even in the era of the first black president, racism is still the most intractable issue in USA. Regarding poverty, half of all Americans are either in or near poverty. Poverty is certainly worse for African-Americans now than it was during King's lifetime.”

Firsts Stills Black President Half Poverty Issues Kings Racism Lifetime African American Eras Usa

Author:Tavis Smiley

“The fellow that has no money is poor. The fellow that has nothing but money is poorer still.”

Stills Wealth Poor Poverty Fellows No Money

Author:Billy Sunday

“‎Honoured sir, poverty is not a vice, that's a true saying. Yet I know too that drunkeness is not a virtue, and that's even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul, but in beggary--never--no one. For beggary a man is not chased out of human society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as humiliating as possible; and quite right, too, forasmuch as in beggary as I am ready to be the first to humiliate myself.”

Knows Men Firsts Humans May Stills Soul Poverty Virtue Ready Sticks Vices Nobility Innate Human Society Humiliating Humiliate Brooms Beggary

Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky

“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.”

Said Stills Hard Secret Poverty Hard Work Grew Grew Up Harder Deeper Hearing Debt Finding Yourself Sinking Get Ahead Secret To Success Tedium

Author:Barbara Ehrenreich