Poverty Quotes

The native American has been generally despised by his white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity.

The poor man wishes to conceal his poverty, and the rich man his wealth: the former fears lest he be despised, the latter lest he be plundered.

Far less wealthy industrialized countries have committed to end child poverty, while the United States is sliding backwards. We can do better. We must demand that our leaders do better.

Both chronic, long-term poverty and downward mobility from the middle class are in the same category of things that America likes not to think about.

Anywhere you have extreme poverty and no national health insurance, no promise of health care regardless of social standing, that's where you see the sharp limitations of market-based health care.

There is no scandal like rags, nor any crime so shameful as poverty.

Without Social Security, poverty rates for African American seniors would more than double.

Money can't buy poverty.

It's great to see countries like China and India lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty by essentially copying Western ways of doing things.

Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.

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

You can't put a load of rockstars up on a stage and expect to wipe out global poverty. That's ludicrous.

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

Medicare is a promise we made to seniors more than four decades ago. When President Johnson signed Medicare into law, one in three seniors lived in poverty. Half of seniors had no health coverage at all.

I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves.

For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred.

I have seen firsthand that agricultural science has enormous potential to increase the yields of small farmers and lift them out of hunger and poverty.

The Right insists that anyone can escape poverty by working hard but that is simply not the case.

First we have to recognize that the cause of poverty is both structural and behavioral. And the first thing about the behavior part is that we need a moral revolution within the African American community. Look - no white racist makes you get pregnant when you are a black teenager.

Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.

He who is not capable of enduring poverty is not capable of being free.

Liberalism, above all, means emancipation - emancipation from one's fears, his inadequacies, from prejudice, from discrimination, from poverty.

Extreme poverty threatens people's right to life itself and makes impossible the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms essential to a humane way of life.

As a result of the current universal benefit, the poverty rate for seniors in America is about 10%. Without the universal benefit, it would be over 50%.

Since Social Security was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 to ensure economic security for American workers, poverty among American seniors has dramatically declined.

The U.S. government has in recent years fought what it termed wars against AIDs, drug abuse, poverty, illiteracy and terrorism. Each of those wars has budgets, legislation, offices, officials, letterhead - everything necessary in a bureaucracy to tell you something is real.

So much talent comes from the base of poverty and those in the margins. You limit the base, you miss too much talent.

Armchair poverty tourism has been around as long as authors have written about class. As an author, I have struggled myself with the nuances of writing about poverty without reducing any community to a catalog of its difficulties.

The global phenomenon of poverty tourism - or 'poorism' - has become increasingly popular during the past few years. Tourists pay to be guided through the favelas of Brazil and the shantytowns of South Africa. The recently opened Los Angeles Gang Tour carries visitors through battle-scarred territories of urban violence and deprivation.

Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.

This administration here and now declares unconditional war on poverty.

When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn't know it had a name.

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.

The burden of poverty isn't just that you don't always have the things you need, it's the feeling of being embarrassed every day of your life, and you'd do anything to lift that burden.

Almost half of the population of the world lives in rural regions and mostly in a state of poverty. Such inequalities in human development have been one of the primary reasons for unrest and, in some parts of the world, even violence.

It is development, not poverty, that causes upheaval and terrorism.

People who go to work every day and perform the services essential to keeping our economy functioning deserve to live above the poverty level.

The internal conditions in Iran are worsening in all aspects. Poverty and unemployment are becoming more severe, despite the fact that Iran has turned into a developed and industrialized country.

I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.

There's a real sense of desperation when you grow up in poverty.

Poverty is the frontier we have to be able to cross.

To be a star is to own the world and all the people in it. After a taste of stardom, everything else is poverty.

My Scottish Labour Party is a crusade - to fight poverty, inequality and injustice.

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.

The two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty.

I am still a socialist. I am a left-of-center politician. I believe that in Africa, if you see the poverty around us, you can't afford to be anything else.

Anticipate charity by preventing poverty.

And if you look at the reality in the United States, where you have more than 40 million people below the poverty line and 42 million on food stamps, and then you look at poverty around the world, clearly the way we're running the engine of capitalism is not serving us well.

Brands must have a point of view on that purposeful engagement, whether it's directed towards the environment, poverty, water as a resource or causes such as breast cancer or education. Merely declaring your commitment to a category or cause will not be enough the distinguish your brand sufficiently to see a return on these well-intended efforts.

There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate who have not been able to conquer poverty.

I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.

Because Social Security is specifically designed to boost the retirement income of low earners with a progressive benefit formula, the program has played an enormous and necessary role in keeping Latinas out of poverty.

As of today, we do not need expert reports by the authoritative analytical institutions to realise that the reasons for such a situation in our community lie in global inequality, poverty and illiteracy.

I think most art comes out of poverty and hard times.

If all of us acted in unison as I act individually there would be no wars and no poverty. I have made myself personally responsible for the fate of every human being who has come my way.

In their poverty, the mentally handicapped reveal God to us and hold us close to the gospel.

There was no pomp and ceremony in connection with the birth of Jesus - rather the opposite: it took place in simplicity and in poverty.

My first hero, as a teenager, was James Connolly. I remember discovering that he was a feminist, and that was an eye-opener, coming from a man of such poverty.

You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money.

Most organizations should be pro-active, but philanthropists concerned with poverty should deliberately be reactive, learning from the efforts of ordinary folks who tired of looking the other way as their communities fell apart.

I think that America in general is piratical. Every time we accept a paycheck for doing almost nothing, allowing us to live above the poverty line, we're engaging in piracy.

It's hard for me to imagine a philosopher disconnected from the world, indifferent to the cares of his country, unmoved by poverty, unemployment: I am a committed citizen.

It's God's will for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty. It's God's will for you to pay your bills and not be in debt.

People see poverty all around them in India, but they are desensitized or immune to it. I came to the conclusion that poverty is driven by lack of education.

I know what poverty is.

To say that any people are not fit for freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather be loaded with taxes than not.

As society advances the standard of poverty rises.

Our goal of poverty eradication and of inclusive growth that embraces the disadvantaged and marginalized sections of society can be achieved when our actions are guided by a social conscience and are not devoid of sensitivity.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

The essence of Africa's crisis is fundamentally its extreme poverty.

The market economy is deeply congruent with the values set out in the Hebrew Bible. Material prosperity is a divine blessing. Poverty crushes the spirit as well as the body, and its alleviation is a sacred task. Work is a noble calling.

At the current $5.15 an hour, the federal minimum wage has become a poverty wage. A full-time worker with one child lives below the official poverty line.

Dire poverty drives this mother back again to the factory (no intelligent person will say she goes willingly).