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Poverty Quotes

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Poverty Quotes

“The dominant orthodoxy in development economics was that Third World countries were trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty that could be broken only by massive foreign aid from the more prosperous industrial nations of the world. This was in keeping with a more general vision on the Left that people were essentially divided into three categories - the heartless, the helpless, and wonderful people like themselves, who would rescue the helpless by playing Lady Bountiful with the taxpayers' money.”

Source: Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays

“Nearly one billion women and men, a third of the world's workforce, are either unemployed or unable to earn enough to keep themselves out of extreme poverty. There are 100 million new entrants into the labour market each year. Up to 90 percent in some regions are in the informal economy. 180 million kids are engaged in the worst forms of child labour. Put it all together and it is not only morally unacceptable, but politically dangerous”

“We are largely the playthings of our fears. To one, fear of the dark; to another, of physical pain; to a third, of public ridicule; to a fourth, of poverty; to a fifth, of loneliness ... for all of us, our particular creature waits in ambush.”

Pain Fear Waiting Dark Poverty Loneliness Particular Creatures Thirds Fourth Ridicule Fifth Physical Pain Ambush

Author:Horace Walpole

“[President Johnson] had the political will to say that having one in five Americans living in the kind of abject conditions their fellow citizens associated with Third World countries and the novels of Dickens was as dangerous as any battlefield enemy.”

“I utterly reject the view that the Third World is doomed to poverty and starvation. Not only is this wrong, I think this attitude verges on the immoral, like thinking that slavery is an unalterable facet of the human condition so why bother doing anything about it?”

Thinking World Humans Views Attitude Poverty Conditions Thirds Slavery Bother Rejects Human Condition Doomed Immoral Starvation Third World Verge Facets Why Bother

Author:Alex Tabarrok

“Half of all kids in public education are below the poverty line. Two-thirds of the achievement gap comes from factors outside of school. Teachers influence about seven to ten percent of what happens in kids' lives. When you think about those statistics, you have to think about how to re-envision education so it's holistic and so we share responsibility.”

“One-third of the world, it has been said, may be free- -but one-third is the victim of cruel repression--and the other one- third is rocked by the pangs of poverty, hunger and envy. More energy is released by the awakening of these new nations than by the fission of the atom itself.”

World May Has Beens Said Energy Nations Poverty Policy Thirds Victim Hunger Envy Awakening Atoms Foreign Policy Repression Fission

Author:John F. Kennedy

“Modernized by tin roofs and T-shirts, Third World poverty is no longer picturesque.”

World Poverty Thirds Shirts Roof T Shirt Third World Tin Picturesque World Poverty

Author:Mason Cooley

“President Lyndon Johnson's administration was known for his War on Poverty. President Obama's will become notable for his War on Prosperity. We're speaking, of course, of Obama's plans to hike income taxes on the most wealthy 2 or 3 percent of the nation. He's not just raising the top rate to 39.6 percent; he's also disallowing about one-third of top earner's deductions, whether for state and local taxes, charitable contributions or mortgage interest. This is an effective hike in their taxes by an average of about 20 percent.”

“Far from the West having caused the poverty in the Third World, contact with the West has been the principal agent of material progress there.”

World Has Beens Poverty Progress Materials Thirds West Contact Agents Principal Third World

Author:Peter Thomas Bauer

“My dad's main client was the World Bank, and he spent most of his time traveling to Third World countries. His particular interest lay in the eradication of poverty through development and business.”

World Country Interest Poverty Particular Development Dad Thirds Lays My Dad Time Travel Clients Third World Third World Countries World Bank

Author:Hugh Jackman

“In the Third World, there are 1.3 billion poor people. In other words, one out of every three inhabitants lives in poverty.”

People World Three Poor Poverty Thirds Billions Poor People Third World

Author:Fidel Castro

“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

“Some foreigners with full bellies and nothing better to do engage in finger-pointing at us. First, China does not export revolution; second, it does not export famine and poverty; and third, it does not mess around with you. So what else is there to say?”

Firsts Doe Poverty Revolution Thirds Fingers China Mess Belly Pointing Foreigners Famine Pointing Fingers

Author:Xi Jinping

“When we talk about gender pay gaps in the United States, and if you look at women without children, they earn 96 cents for every dollar that a man is earning, while for mothers it is about 76 cents. That's nearly 25 percent less. For single mothers, the situation is even worse. One third of them are living in poverty or just on the edge of poverty. This is an unacceptable situation.”

Ifs Men Looks Children States Mother United Pay Situation Poverty United States Percent Thirds Dollars Edges Gender Gaps Cents Earning Single Mother Pay Gap

Author:Anne-Marie Slaughter

“The problem the world faces today is that only one-third of the world's population lives in decent circumstances, while half the population of the world lives on one or two dollars a day. And even as we have this poverty and backwardness, we are facing a global environmental crisis. We need developmental models that will take into account the specific and unique position of each country and at the same time will address the environmental crisis.”

“The first issue that compelled me was a very strange split between India being highly development scientifically (we were the third biggest scientific manpower in the world then) and yet at the same time struggling with amazing poverty. The linear equation that says that modern science equals progress and the reduction of poverty did not apply to India. It wasn't working.”

World Firsts Poverty Struggle Issues Progress Modern Strange Development Thirds India Splits Compelled Equations Reduction Linear Modern Science Manpower Linear Equations

Author:Vandana Shiva

“The collective shortfall of the 3.08 billion people (47 percent of world population) who, in 2005, lived below $2.50 per day was $507 billion per annum, which indeed comes to about two-thirds of the present US military budget. This gives us a rough sense of how much the eradication of poverty would cost.”

People World Giving Two Poverty Military Cost Percent Thirds Population Billions Budgets Collectives Rough World Population Us Military Military Budget

Author:Thomas Pogge

“To be a woman condemned to a wretched and disgraceful punishment is no impediment to beauty, but it is an insurmountable obstacle to power. Like all persons of real genius, her ladyship well knew what accorded with her nature and her means. Poverty disgusted her -subjection deprived her of two-thirds of her greatness. Her ladyship was only a queen amongst queens: the enjoyment of satisfied pride was essential to her sway. To command beings of an inferior nature, was, to her, rather a humiliation than a pleasure.”