Poverty Quotes

Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.

In the past, we spoke of poverty, misery only in the south. Now there is a lot of misery, a lot of bad that creates victims in the north as well. This has become manifest: the global system was not made to serve the good of all, but to serve multinational companies.

Poverty makes you wise but it's a curse.

Desire is poverty. Desire is the greatest impurity of the mind. Desire is the motive force for action. Desire in the mind is the real impurity. Even a spark of desire is a very great evil.

In opposition to this detachment, he finds an image of man which contains within itself man's dreams, man's illness, man's redemption from the misery of poverty - poverty which can no longer be for him a sign of the acceptance of life.

He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

Social Security not only helps Americans enjoy a secure retirement, it has also kept millions of Americans out of poverty.

I have committed my life to helping the poor, and I believe that if more companies followed Wal-Mart's lead in providing opportunity and savings to those who need it most, more Americans battling poverty would realize the American dream.

The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty by how little.

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

This administration here and now declares unconditional war on poverty.

You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.

If you look internationally over the last 50 years there have been improvements in the third world, but in the last 20 years the reverse has happened, with debt crises and increased poverty.

The rich are richer, and the poor are poorer, in the city than elsewhere; and, as a rule, the greater are the riches of the rich and the poverty of the poor.

These Americans are among the working poor with full-time jobs earning $5.15 an hour. Millions fall into this boat, even more when you consider that the poverty line has not been adequately adjusted to reflect the true level of poverty in this country.

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.

It is unacceptable that someone can work full time - and work hard - and not be able to lift themselves out of poverty.

In Afghanistan, there is a plan to build democracy; hundreds of thousands of troops are protecting it. There is a plan to rebuild and reconstruct there. But many thousands of Americans die from violence and poverty every year and we don't have a plan for reconstruction at home.

Let's face it - think of Africa, and the first images that come to mind are of war, poverty, famine and flies. How many of us really know anything at all about the truly great ancient African civilizations, which in their day, were just as splendid and glorious as any on the face of the earth?

Physical hunger and physical poverty is something I could only imagine. I've been poor when I was in China... As kids we never had to starve, but just didn't have enough meat, enough rice.

Money can't buy poverty.

In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land.

I grew up below the poverty line; I didn't have as much as other people did. I think it made me stronger as a person, it built my character. Now I have a 4.0 grade point average and I want to go to college, and just become a better person.

The strongest predictor of unhappiness is anyone who has had a mental illness in the last 10 years. It is an even stronger predictor of unhappiness than poverty - which also ranks highly.

I have always had a horror and detestation of poverty.

Open markets offer the only realistic hope of pulling billions of people in developing countries out of abject poverty, while sustaining prosperity in the industrialized world.

My attitude to peace is rather based on the Burmese definition of peace - it really means removing all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world. So peace does not mean just putting an end to violence or to war, but to all other factors that threaten peace, such as discrimination, such as inequality, poverty.

Stand-up comedy and poverty. Those were my two main endeavors.

The price of indulging yourself in your youth in the things you cannot afford is poverty and dependence in your old age.

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.