Poverty Quotes

We know we cannot achieve our twin goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity without ending poverty and creating equality for women and girls.

People who work full-time in America should not have to live in poverty - simple as that. Too many jobs don't pay enough to get by, let alone get ahead. Too many people are finding the rungs on the ladder of opportunity further and further apart.

I just don't think that the differences you make by donating to a museum or an art gallery really compare to the differences you make by donating to the charities that fight global poverty.

You can't raise the aspirations of a child and then leave them hanging. Poverty can't be solved by a project. It's solved by a relationship, collaboration.

It doesn't matter what color you are. Poverty is poverty. Inmates come from all walks of life. We have to make sure we look out for these people and give them a chance.

When I was confronted with just the bare facts of poverty and inequality in America, it always disturbed and confused me.

Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance.

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

The vast majority of immigrants - regardless of the conditions of war and poverty that may wrack their home countries - come and contribute to their new home country: building our roads, caring for our homes, children, and elders, and serving as doctors, lawyers, employers, and innovators.

The best way to end poverty is to simply give people work, which isn't considered 'sexy' among donors who want to fund a preschool or cure a disease.

We develop the kind of citizens we deserve. If a large number of our children grow up into frustration and poverty, we must expect to pay the price.

I utterly reject the view that the Third World is doomed to poverty and starvation. Not only is this wrong, I think this attitude verges on the immoral, like thinking that slavery is an unalterable facet of the human condition so why bother doing anything about it?

We know that over a billion people live in poverty around the world, and most of them are women and girls. If we can improve their lives, that has a positive effect on their communities, on their families, on their countries.

I want to eradicate poverty. I think that there's a tremendous passion for that inside the World Bank.

I want to wage war against illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, unfair competition, communitarianism, delinquency.

The present Arab uprising didn't stem from Israel. The old guard is trying to keep down the young chickens. The old guard is better organized. They may win elections, but unless they have a solution to poverty, to corruption, to oppression, they will not last. I am with the young people.

The planet's biggest problems have to do with sustainability, environmental decline, global poverty, disease, conflict and so forth. Really, they're all interconnected - it's one big problem, which is that the way we're doing things can't go on.

Runaway climate change would condemn millions to a life of poverty and cause us to fail to meet the Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. This is not an acceptable outcome.

I left Xerox for the non-profit sector because it was clear to me that only public/private partnerships can pull off a turnaround plan at the scale we need to tackle global poverty.

If poverty were a man, I would have slain him.

The main environmental challenge of the 21st century is poverty. When you don't know where your next meal is coming from, it's hard to consider the environment 100 years down the line.

Health care is a design problem. Dependence on foreign oil is a design problem. To some extent, poverty is a design problem. We need design thinkers to solve those problems, and most people who are in positions of political power are not design thinkers, to put it mildly.

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

Can we really believe that we are living a good life, an ethically decent life if we don't do anything serious to help reduce poverty around the world and help save the lives of children or adults who are likely to die if we don't increase the amount of aid we are giving.

Poverty is unnecessary.

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

We will not be intimidated or pushed off the world stage by people who do not like what we stand for, and that is, freedom, democracy and the fight against disease, poverty and terrorism.

All over the world, children facing the challenges of poverty attend schools that aren't designed to meet their extra needs; across country lines, the lives of marginalized kids look far more similar than they do different.

Educated and productive young people are needed to help lift their countries out of poverty and create a wealthier, more secure world.

I don't want to be an apologist for poverty, but I can't stand waste, useless spending, wasted energy and having to live squandering stuff.

Stark inequality, poverty, and unemployment are driving increased social unrest and, consequently, social and economic risk. Environmental deterioration may well intensify social inequality.

Through my studies, I became increasingly disillusioned with the international aid system. I think we systematically deny poor people the chance to engage as equals in the global economic order. At best, we give them handouts or tiny loans and hope they will suffer a bit less from extreme poverty. We don't view them as equals.

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

For every challenge we face - unemployment, poverty, crime, income growth, income inequality, productivity, competitiveness - a great education is a major component of the solution.

I love my mother the most in the world. She has seen a lot of poverty and loneliness and is very simple. Whenever I am in trouble, I go far away from her, as she is not at all strong. If I see her breaking, I break.

We are one of the richest countries in the world, and there is absolutely no reason why anyone should have to live in poverty.

When you grow up in poverty, suffer from abuse, live in a violent neighborhood, come from a broken home, lack positive role models, are told you'll never amount to anything, etc, the challenges are enormous.

When work is not underpinned by social protection, people risk falling into poverty traps.

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.

In the 21st century, I think the heroes will be the people who will improve the quality of life, fight poverty and introduce more sustainability.

I am deeply concerned about the impact of poverty on children because poverty can destroy their future and bind them to a life of misery.

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. As kids, we didn't complain about being poor; we talked about how rich we were going to be and made moves to get the lifestyle we aspired to by any means we could.

Anticipate charity by preventing poverty.

The second truism that we must understand is that poverty does not create our social problems, our social problems create our poverty.

Poverty is everyone's problem. It cuts across any line you can name: age, race, social, geographic or religious. Whether you are black or white; rich, middle-class or poor, we are ALL touched by poverty.

No woman who works full time and plays by the rules should have to raise her family in poverty.

Expanding access to decent work opportunities is the most effective way to increase labor-market participation, lift people out of poverty, reduce inequality, and drive economic growth. It should be at the center of policymaking. The alternative is a dog-eat-dog world in which too many will feel left out.

I believe that the war against terrorism and the war against poverty in these times of turmoil go together. So you - when you fight one, you have to fight the other.

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.

If we take a hard look at what poverty is, its nature, it's not pretty - it's full of trauma. And we're able to accept trauma with certain groups, like with soldiers, for instance - we understand that they face trauma and that trauma can be connected to things like depression or acts of violence later on in life.

Helping people boost themselves out of poverty is the best way to make a lasting positive difference in a person's life.

Left unchecked, climate change risks not only making the poorest poorer, but pulling the emerging middle classes back into poverty, too.

I realize that I'm in the top one percent of the world. I've traveled a lot. I've seen immense poverty in the world, and I can't live with everything I've had and be comfortable with everything I have unless I do something for the rest of the world.

The rewards for biotechnology are tremendous - to solve disease, eliminate poverty, age gracefully. It sounds so much cooler than Facebook.

Poverty of course is no disgrace, but it is damned annoying.

I didn't have any personal goals when I came, but after being in politics - after seeing people, their difficulties, their wants - I think our goal has to be to eliminate poverty from India.