The challenge I set before anyone who condemns private-sector business is this: If you are a socially conscious person, why don't you run your business in a way that will help achieve social objectives?
Muhammad YunusToday, if you look at financial systems around the globe, more than half the population of the world - out of six billion people, more than three billion - do not qualify to take out a loan from a bank. This is a shame.
Muhammad YunusWe have done some of these in Bangladesh. Whenever I see a problem, I immediately go and create a company. That's what I did all my life.
Muhammad YunusIf we are looking for one single action which will enable the poor to overcome their poverty, I would go for credit. Money is power. I have been arguing that credit should be accepted as a human right. If we can come up with a system which allows everybody access to credit while ensuring excellent repayment - I can give you a guarantee that poverty will not last long.
Muhammad YunusI'm sure everything has a bearing on what I'm doing. My family is a lower-middle-class family, there's lots of children, seven brothers, two sisters grew up together, fighting with each other, went to school. My mother went to school up to 4th grade. My father went to school up to 8th grade. So that's about the education level we had in the family.
Muhammad Yunus