Popular quotes about Poor! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 30
America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves... It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters.
Kurt VonnegutWhen the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example for the poor to plunder the rich of his property, for the rights of the one are as much property to him as wealth is property to the other, and the little all is as dear as the much. It is only by setting out on just principles that men are trained to be just to each other; and it will always be found, that when the rich protect the rights of the poor, the poor will protect the property of the rich. But the guarantee, to be effectual, must be parliamentarily reciprocal.
Thomas PaineA greater poverty than that caused by lack of money is the poverty of unawareness. Men and women go about the world unaware of the beauty, the goodness, the glories in it. Their souls are poor. It is better to have a poor pocketbook than to suffer from a poor soul.
Thomas DreierOnce upon a time, there was a boy who learned to read at the age of 5. This changed his life. Owing to the adventure tales he read, he discovered a way to escape from the poor house, the poor country, and the poor reality in which he lived.
Mario Vargas LlosaThe poor have often been subversive just because they don't always believe their own depiction as brutes and loafers and leeches, and new economy is making lots more poor or recognize their fellowship with the insecurity of the poor, the portion of the population for whom the system does not work.
Rebecca SolnitWhen we speak for the poor, please note that we do not take sides with one social class. What we do is invite all social classes, rich and poor, without distinction, saying to everyone let us take seriously the cause of the poor as though it were our own.
Oscar RomeroNinety-seven percent of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 are white men, and what they do radiates all the way down into poor areas and cities around our country. Like predatory lending and misallocation of municipal services. These guys get municipal service, poor areas don't. So they run the economy into the ground, and who suffers the most? The poor pay more and they die earlier.
Ralph NaderIf you neglect those who are currently poor and stable, you may create more poor and unstable people. There has been a tremendous concentration of donor interest in countries that are seen as particularly fragile - but it becomes harder to mobilise money for sub-Saharan, plain poor countries.
Helen ClarkAn infernal machine that produces every minute an impressive amount of poor, 26 million poor in 10 years are 2.6 million per year of new poor, this is the road, well, the road to hell.
Hugo ChavezGod refuses only the person who does not admit his own weakness; He sends away only the unhappy proud person. You must "hold him" well and strongly, with a poor spirit, with a poor heart, with a life entirely poor.
Raphael KalinowskiIt's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral, self-righteous, bullying laziness.
Penn JilletteThere's an awful lot of misunderstanding here about what being poor actually means. I don't think people understand that being poor means you have to work from dawn until dusk just to survive through the day. I think there's some notion that poor people lie about all day not doing anything. It is remarkable how many misconceptions there are here about life in the developing world and I think that that knowledge gap has done a lot to contribute to the imbalance quite frankly.
Emma ThompsonBut the poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.
Gustavo GutiรฉrrezOne day as Father and I were returning from our walk we found the Grote Markt cordoned off by a double ring of police and soldiers. A truck was parked in front of the fish mart; into the back were climbing men, women, and children, all wearing the yellow star. . . . "Father! Those poor people!" I cried. . . . "Those poor people," Father echoed. But to my surprise I saw that he was looking at the solders now forming into ranks to march away. "I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God's eye.
Corrie Ten BoomIt is only all too easy to understand the requirements contained in God's Word ('Give all your goods to the poor.' 'If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the left.' 'If anyone takes your coat, let him have your cloak also. Rejoice always.' 'Count it sheer joy when you meet various temptations' etc.). The most ignorant, poor creature cannot honestly deny being able to understand God's requirements. But it is tough on the flesh to will to understand it and to then act accordingly. It is not a question of interpretation, but action.
Soren KierkegaardManila is a city of extremes. The poor are very poor and the rich very rich. A constant reminder to the rich that there is another side to life.
Arlene J. ChaiDo not give to the poor expecting to get their gratitude so that you can feel good about yourself. If you do, your giving will be thin and short-lived, and that is not what the poor need; it will only improvish them further. Give only if you have something you must give; give only if you are someone for whom giving is its own reward.
Dorothy DayCan a man be poor if he is free from want, if he does not covet the belongings of others, if he is rich in the possession of God? Rather, he is poor who possesses much but still craves for more.
Marcus Minucius FelixHe who does not believe has no soul. He is empty. He has no ideals. He has nothing to live for. He has no sunshine, no light. No joy in life. He is a poor, poor man.
Robert LeyThe modern welfare state, highly touted as soaking the rich to subsidize the poor, does no such thing. In fact, soaking the rich would have disastrous effects, not just for the rich but for the poor and middle classes themselves. For it is the rich who provide a proportionately greater amount of saving, investment capital, entrepreneurial foresight, and financing of technological innovation that has brought the Unites States to by far the highest standard of living - for the mass of the people - of any country in history.
Murray RothbardIf you've ever really been poor you remain poor at heart all your life. I've often walked when I could very well afford to take a taxi because I simply couldn't bring myself to waste the shilling it would cost.
Arnold BennettWhat fun it would be to be poor, as long as one was excessively poor! Anything in excess is most exhilarating
Jean AnouilhIn my wildest imagination, I never thought that the fifth of six children born to Helen and Buddy Watts - in a poor black neighborhood, in the poor rural community of Eufaula, Oklahoma - would someday be called Congressman.
J. C. WattsWhen I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.
Hรฉlder CรขmaraYou canโt lose with the stuff I use!โ; โSome may say money is the root of all evil, but being in poverty is a damn shame!โ; โThe best thing you can do for the poor is not be one of themโ; โGod doesnโt want you to have your pie-in-the-sky, by and by, when you die. He wants you to have it now with a cherry on top!โ; and โIf itโs that difficult for a rich man to get into heaven, think how terrible it must be for a poor man to get in. He doesnโt even have a bribe for the gatekeeper!
Reverend IkePoor people know poor people, and rich people know rich people. It is one of the few things La Rochefoucauld did not say, but then La Rochefoucauld never lived in the Bronx.
Moss HartIn the treatment of poverty nationally, one fact stands out: there are twice as many white poor as Negro poor in the United States. Therefore I will not dwell on the experiences of poverty that derive from racial discrimination, but will discuss the poverty that affects white and Negro alike.
Martin LutherThough a censure lies against those who are poor and proud, yet is Pride sooner to be forgiven in a poor person than in a rich one; since in the latter it is insult and arrogance; in the former, it may be a defense against temptations to dishonesty; and, if manifested on proper occasions, may indicate a natural bravery of mind, which the frowns of fortune cannot depress.
Samuel RichardsonNo matter whether it is their intention or not, almost anything that the rich can legally do tends to help the poor. The spending of the rich gives employment to the poor. But the saving of the rich, and their investment of these savings in the means of production, gives just as much employment, and in addition makes that employment constantly more productive and more highly paid, while it also constantly increases and cheapens the production of necessities and amenities for the masses.
Henry HazlittTo put it quite crudely ... the poor don't really know how the rich live, and the rich don't know how the poor live, and to find out is really enchanting to both of them.
Agatha ChristieJesus never says to the poor: โcome find the churchโ, but he says to those of us in the church: โgo into the world and find the poor, hungry, homeless, imprisoned.
Tony CampoloPoor people have been voting for Democrats for the last 50 years and they're still poor.
Charles BarkleySimply put, unsustainable debt is helping to keep too many poor countries and poor people in poverty.
William J. ClintonIf this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.
Stephen ColbertIf you take from the rich you give the rich less incentive. If you give what you have taken from the rich to the poor, you make the poor more dependent. Nobody wins.
Josh BernsteinWe must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.
Pope FrancisControl in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factorites, whose lives are filled qith cause for rebellion, be taught that all is right as it is. And so, the schools, the churches, the popular literature taught that to be rich was a sign of superiority, to be poor a sign of personal failure, and that the only way upward for a poor person was to climb into the ranks of the rich by extraordinary effort and extraordinary luck.
Howard Zinn[Donald Trump] said it`s against affordable health care for poor people and will not fight to raise wages for working poor people, that`s pushing all of them in terms of policy.
Jesse JacksonExploitation of the poor can be extinguished not by effecting the destruction of a few millionaires, but by removing the ignorance of the poor and teaching them to non-cooperate with their exploiters.
Mahatma GandhiThe extraordinary triumph of the cellphone among India's poor stemmed from its ability to enable a most mundane human need, which is to chat with other people. And when the poor chat, it is not always about curing a child of diarrhea.
Manu JosephBut I hope to maintain my credibility after I stop playing. Because, yes of course, now I play and I score goals and children all over are mad about me. Not just poor children - all children. We can make them really happy by the way we play, though I have to say that it's the poor ones that I think of most, the ones who can't come and watch the games at the stadium. We mean so much to them. That's why I'm so committed to this work. Later, after you've stopped playing, it's harder to have the same impact. But I will give it a go. I want to continue doing this kind of work for ever.
Cristiano RonaldoIf you're a rich guy, the best thing you can do is demand tax increases on the rich. That way the poor guy will leave you alone. The middle class and the poor will leave you alone.
Rush LimbaughThere's no real nationalism in this county. If you're poor in America, that's a criminal offense. You're not only a criminal for being poor, but you're also stupid and deficient. We don't have this national feeling of fraternity. We live in an individualist state where everyone hates everyone else, except your immediate family. We live in a mafia state.
Ian SvenoniusBe sure that you give the poor the aid they most need. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them. Often the poor man is not cold and hungry as he is dirty and ragged and gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his misfortune.
Henry David ThoreauOne of the challenges of educating especially poor people of any color on conservation and environmental issues is that poor people have a list of priorities that are more immediate quality of life issues.
Jerome RingoThen she added in a sort of childish delight: 'We'll be poor, won't we? Like people in books. And I'll be an orphan and utterly free. Free and poor! What fun!' She stopped and raised her lips to him in a delighted kiss. 'It's impossible to be both together,' said John grimly. 'People have found that out. And I should choose to be free as preferable of the two.
F. Scott FitzgeraldIf the level and amount of consumption and waste of the western rich countries ever reaches the poor countries, it will mean the end of humanity. The big world corporations are busy doing it...The production, selling, consumption, accumulation, wastes' and advertisement explosions in the western rich countries and the continued population explosion in the poor countries will turn into major catastrophes.
Robert Muller