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Poverty Quotes

Browse 6296 quotes about Poverty.

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Poverty Quotes

“Inevitably, people tell me that poor folks are lazy or unintelligent, that they are somehow deserving of their poverty. However, if you begin to look at the sociological literature on poverty, a more complex picture emerges. Poverty and unemployment are part and parcel of our economic order. Without them, capitalism would cease to function effectively, and in order to continue to function, the system itself must produce poverty and an army of underemployed or unemployed people.”

PeopleIfsLooksOrderLiteraturePoorPovertyEconomicProduceCapitalismFunctionArmyComplexesFolksCeaseLazyUnemploymentDeservingUnemployedParcelSociologicalUnintelligentEconomic OrderUnderemployed
Author:Bob Torres
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“The current economic crisis...has numerous causes and sends a powerful message about the need for a profound revision of the model of global economic development. It's an acute symptom that is added to other more grave and already well-known ones, such as the continued imbalance between wealth and poverty, the scandal of hunger, the ecological emergency and the problem of unemployment, which has now become general. In this context a strategic re-launching of agriculture appears decisive.”

NeedsWellsProblemCausesWealthPowerfulKnownPovertyEconomicLandDevelopmentMessagesModelsCrisisProfoundHungerCurrentsGravesAgricultureUnemploymentWell KnownSymptomsScandalEmergenciesStrategicEcologicalRevisionEconomic DevelopmentImbalanceLaunchingEconomic CrisisWealth And Poverty
Author:Pope Benedict XVI
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“As a kid who failed out of high school as a freshman, I know firsthand and personally that sense of hopelessness and just being - drifting in the wrong direction, having really no hope. And being able to harness that frustration was incredibly valuable in my life. That's one of the reasons I focus so consistently on the foundation of education, because it helps to eviscerate those things that - unemployment, high jobless rates, poverty.”

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Author:Tim Scott
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“I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions--poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed--which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished.”

WayDoeIdeasProblemCulturePowerfulPovertyRichViolenceConditionsCrimeRacismRootsVictimGreedSolveConvincedEndlessUselessCyclesSubstitutesPretendingUnemploymentDesperationMaintainingHomelessnessRetributionImprisonmentEliminationCycle Of Violence
Author:Howard Zinn
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“To politicians, solved problems represent a dire threat - of unemployment and poverty. That's why no problem ever tackled by the government has ever been solved. What they want is lots of problems they can promise to solve, so that we'll keep electing them - or letting them keep their jobs in a bureaucracy metastasizing like cancer.”

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Author:L. Neil Smith
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“The image of blacks usually is one of people who are suffering from hunger, unemployment, and poverty. The idea of them as agents and activists - as starting revolutions - does not exist in most people's minds. And I think it's very, very important that folks understand how much this country was founded on the enslavement of blacks, and how the resistance of blacks to that enslavement has been the spark plug for so many important developments.”

PeopleThinkingMindDoeHas BeensImportantIdeasCountrySufferingPovertyRevolutionDevelopmentStartingHungerFolksResistanceAgentsActivistSparksUnemploymentPlugsEnslavement
Author:Grace Lee Boggs
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“Unemployment in the sense of distress is widely disappearing. . . . We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poor-house is vanishing from among us. We have not yet reached the goal, but given a change to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, and we shall soon with he help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation. There is no guarantee against poverty equal to a job for every man. That is the primary purpose of the economic policies we advocate”

MenYearsHelpingTodayJobsLastsAmericaPurposeHouseGivenNationsGoalPoorPovertyEconomicLandPolicyEqualSightFinalsEightDisappearEvery ManPrimariesTriumphGuaranteesDistressUnemploymentVanishingEconomic PolicyAmerica Today
Author:Herbert Hoover
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“A city suffering from chronic poverty, out-of-control crime, a $76 million budget deficit and a 15 percent unemployment rate (nearly 50 percent for Oakland's youth) can hardly afford such social justice follies. But a pushover Democratic mayor and an overwhelmed police force have left what's left of gainfully employed Oakland taxpayers at the mercy of professional freeloaders and anti-capitalism saboteurs.”

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Author:Michelle Malkin
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“To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.”

MenCarePoorPovertyEvery ManEndeavorIdleUnemploymentIdlenessReproach
Book: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 Late Productions of Mrs. Piozzi, Mr. Boswell, ...
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“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.”

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Author:Yasser Arafat
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“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.”

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Author:Cory Booker
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“Our people are dying, poverty and unemployment are on the rise, but the rest of the world says that Musharraf is needed because [only] he can stop nuclear proliferation, [only] he [can launch] an operation in the tribal areas. So he manipulates and dangles some kind of carrot in front of the world all the time. This is not good for the people [of Pakistan], and I think the world has got it all wrong.”

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Author:Benazir Bhutto
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“The image of blacks usually is one of people who are suffering from hunger, unemployment, and poverty. The idea of them as agents and activists - as starting revolutions - does not exist in most people's minds. And I think it's very, very important that folks understand how much America was founded on the enslavement of blacks, and how the resistance of blacks to that enslavement has been the spark plug for so many important developments.”

PeopleThinkingMindDoeHas BeensImportantIdeasAmericaSufferingPovertyRevolutionDevelopmentStartingHungerFolksResistanceAgentsActivistSparksUnemploymentPlugsEnslavement
Author:Grace Lee Boggs
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“Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.”

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Book:Fireside chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: radio addresses to the American people about the Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War, 1933-1944
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“Unprecedented technological capabilities combined with unlimited human creativity have given us tremendous power to take on intractable problems like poverty, unemployment, disease, and environmental degradation. Our challenge is to translate this extraordinary potential into meaningful change.”

HumansProblemGivenChallengesPovertyCreativityDiseaseEnvironmentalExtraordinaryMeaningfulCapabilityTranslateTechnologicalUnemploymentUnlimitedDegradationUnprecedentedEnvironmental Degradation
Author:Muhammad Yunus
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“But the economic meltdown should have undone, once and for all, the idea of poverty as a personal shortcoming or dysfunctional state of mind. The lines at unemployment offices and churches offering free food includes strivers as well as slackers, habitual optimists as well as the chronically depressed. When and if the economy recovers we can never allow ourselves to forget how widespread our vulnerability is, how easy it is to spiral down toward destitution.”

IfsShouldMindWellsIdeasStatesEasyChurchLinesForgetPovertyEconomyEconomicOfficeShould HaveVulnerabilityState Of MindOfferingUnemploymentOptimistShortcomingsUndoneHabitualSpiralsSlackerMeltdownsFree FoodStrivers
Book:Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
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“Depression is not caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, and it is not cured by medication. Depression may not even be an illness at all. Often, it can be a normal reaction to abnormal situations. Poverty, unemployment, and the loss of loved ones can make people depressed, and these social and situational causes of depression cannot be changed by drugs.”

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Author:Irving Kirsch
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