Poverty Quotes

Social Security is one of the greatest achievements of the American government, protecting our elderly against poverty and assuring young people of a more secure future.

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

We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.

Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.

We have mistaken the nature of poverty, and thought it was economic poverty. No, it is poverty of soul, deprivation of God's recreating, loving peace.

It has to have a payroll tax that's dedicated to Social Security. The Social Security tax has been very successful over the years in raising almost all of our elderly citizens out of poverty.

We have common enemies today. It's called childhood poverty. It's called cancer. It's called AIDS. It's called Parkinson's. It's called Muscular Dystrophy.

There's only one thing money won't buy, and that is poverty.

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.

There was never a war on poverty. Maybe there was a skirmish on poverty.

International lending banks need to focus on areas where private investment doesn't go, such as infrastructure projects, education and poverty relief.

He is now rising from affluence to poverty.

For as long as our people are held hostage by controllable socio-economic forces, we cannot afford to be indifferent to the ravages of poverty in all its dimensions and ramifications.

Progress and Poverty was the most closely knit, fascinating, and convincing specimen of argumentation that, I believe, ever sprang from the mind of man.

On the one hand we have got to ask, are there some areas of universal benefits that are no longer affordable? But on the other hand let us look at the issue of dependency where we have trapped people in poverty through the extent of welfare that they have.

I came from abject poverty. There was nowhere to go but up.

There is nothing worse than being ashamed of parsimony or poverty.

We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don't want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.

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.

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.

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.