Quotes about Poverty

Economist, Philosopher

We live in a world community, and economic contact has partly contributed to that. Its also the case that economic opportunity opened up by economic contact has helped to a great extent to reduce poverty in many parts of the world.

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

Leader, Civil rights activist

I had a very depressing response because I realized that these were my own people, these were Negroes throwing eggs at me. I'm concerned about the fact that maybe all of us have contributed to this by not working harder to get rid of the conditions, the poverty, the social isolation, and all of the conditions that cause individuals to respond like this.

Conditioning - Depression - Facts - Individual - Isolation - People - Poverty

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Seneca the Younger

Philosopher, Statesman, Dramatist

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

Making - Poverty - Rich

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Director, Philosopher, Philosopher

If, by chance, someone among those men of extraordinary talent is found who has firmness of soul and who refuses to yield to the genius of his age and to debase himself with childish works, woe unto him! He will die in poverty and oblivion.

Age - Chance - Death - Extraordinary - Finding - Man - Oblivion - Poverty - Refuse - Soul - Talent - Yielding

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Chanakya

Teacher, Philosopher, Royal Adviser

Charity puts and end to poverty; righteous conduct to misery; discretion to ignorance; and scrutiny to fear.

Charity - End - Ignorance - Misery - Poverty - Righteousness

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Wallace D. Wattles

Author

Whatever may be said in praise of poverty, the fact remains that it is not possible to live a really complete or successful life unless one is rich. No man can rise to his greatest possible height in talent or soul development unless he has plenty of money; for to unfold the soul and develop talent he must have many things to use, and he cannot have these things unless he has money to buy them with.

Development - Facts - Man - Money - Poverty - Praise - Rich - Soul - Success - Talent

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Aristotle

Philosopher

To leave the number of births unrestricted, as is done in most states, inevitably causes poverty among the citizens, and poverty produces crime and faction.

Citizenry - Crime - Politics - Poverty - Production - State

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Dalai Lama, XIV

Leader of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism, Exiled Leader of Tibet

Provided that societies stay mindful of the challenges that capitalism creates and never forget the paramount importance of inclusion and equal opportunity, we can and should celebrate the miracle of free enterprise-and the billions of souls it has helped free from desperate poverty.

Capitalism - Celebration - Challenge - Despair - Enterprising - Equality - Miracle - Opportunity - Poverty - Soul

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Arthur Schopenhauer

Philosopher

Poverty and slavery are thus only two forms ofthe same thing, the essence of which is that a man's energies are expended for the most part not on his own behalf but on that of others.

Energy - Essence - Man - Poverty - Slavery

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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Poet, Philosopher, Philosopher

Poverty in itself does not make men into a rabble; a rabble is created only when there is joined to poverty a disposition of mind, an inner indignation against the rich, against society, against the government.

Dispose - Government - Man - Mindset - Poverty - Rich

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Salman Rushdie

Politician, Novelist, Novelist

Certainly, poverty and economic decline have a lot to do with the so-called rage of Islam. You've got all these young men in countries which are economically in bad shape. The idea that they might be able to make a good living and get married and have a family, a decent life, seems very remote to a lot of people in a lot of the world.

Ability - Countries - Economy - Islam - Man - Marriage - People - Poverty - World

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Jesse Jackson

Civil Rights Activist, Clergyman, Politician

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.

Death - Democracy - Home - Plan - Poverty - Violence

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Robert Kennedy

Actor, Politician, Former U.S. Senator

I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil. Government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary and there are people in distress.

Belief - Government - People - Politics - Poverty - Wealth

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Rumi

Actress, Poet, Poet

Poverty is not for the sake of hardship. No, it is there because nothing exists but Allah. Poverty unlocks the door - what a blessed key!

Blessing - Hardship - Islam - Key - Poverty - Wisdom

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William Butler Yeats

Clergyman, Poet, Poet

But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Future - Life - Love - Poverty

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Norman Vincent Peale

Clergyman, Author

Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.

Achievement - Emptiness - Life - Money - Positive - Poverty - Rich - Wealth - Wrestling

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Charles Spurgeon

Pastor, Author

If you are to go to Christ, do not put on your good doings and feelings, or you will get nothing. Go in your sins, they are your livery. Your ruin is your argument for mercy! Your poverty is your plea for heavenly alms! And your need is the motive for heavenly goodness.

Alms - Feelings - Good - Mercy - Misery - Motivation - Poverty - Sin

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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Poet, Philosopher, Philosopher

The evident character of this defective cognition of which mathematics is proud, and on which it plumes itself before philosophy, rests solely on the poverty of its purpose and the defectiveness of its stuff, and is therefore of a kind that philosophy must spurn

Character - Kindness - Mathematics - Philosophy - Poverty - Purpose

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Fyodor Dostoevsky

Athlete, Novelist, Novelist

‎Honoured sir, poverty is not a vice, that's a true saying. Yet I know too that drunkeness is not a virtue, and that's even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul, but in beggary--never--no one. For beggary a man is not chased out of human society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as humiliating as possible; and quite right, too, forasmuch as in beggary as I am ready to be the first to humiliate myself.

Human - Man - Nobility - Poverty - Soul - Vices - Virtue

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Rutherford B. Hayes

Actress, President, 19th U.S. President

Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty. As millionaires increase, pauperism grows. The more millionaires, the more paupers.

Growing - Millionaires - Poverty

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