The real cause of hunger is the powerlessness of the poor to gain access to the resources they need to feed themselves.

I had no identity [when I was 27] - I was terrified that somebody would ask me what I was doing, and I would have no answer.

Humans need to feel effective - to feel that we can "make a dent," as he puts it. So the art of living is to find expressions appropriate to our own uniqueness in which we can experience effectiveness.

No society has fulfilled its democratic promise if people go hungry... If some go without food they have surely been deprived of all power. The existence of hunger belies the existence of democracy.

I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are.

What we see today is a world movement represented by the World Social Forum, involving all sorts of interactions across cultures, not to create some new "ism," but to learn as we walk and to create more democratic forms of social organization that re-embed economic life in community.

in a world where only a minor portion of the land is really well suited to agriculture, man is using much of the best land with dubious efficiency.