Best 2723 quotes in «poverty quotes» category

Racism is both overt and covert. It takes two, closely related forms: individual whites acting against individual blacks, and acts by the total white community against the black community. We call these individual racism and institutional racism. The first consists of overt acts by individuals, which cause death, injury or the violent destruction of property. This type can be recorded by television cameras; it can frequently be observed in the process of commission. The second type is less overt, far more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts. But it is no less destructive of human life. The second type originates in the operation of established and respected forces in the society, and thus receives far less public condemnation than the first type. When white terrorists bomb a black church and kill five black children, that is an act of individual racism, widely deplored by most segments of the society. But when in that same city - Birmingham, Alabama - five hundred black babies die each year because of the lack of proper food, shelter and medical facilities, and thousands more are destroyed and maimed physically, emotionally and intellectually because of conditions of poverty and discrimination in the black community, that is a function of institutional racism. When a black family moves into a home in a white neighborhood and is stoned, burned or routed out, they are victims of an overt act of individual racism which many people will condemn - at least in words. But it is institutional racism that keeps black people locked in dilapidated slum tenements, subject to the daily prey of exploitative slumlords, merchants, loan sharks and discriminatory real estate agents. The society either pretends it does not know of this latter situation, or is in fact incapable of doing anything meaningful about it.

Rabbi Hiyya advised his wife, “When a poor man comes to the door, be quick to give him food so that the same may be done to your children.” She exclaimed, “You are cursing our children [with the suggestion that they may become beggars].” But Rabbi Hiyya replied, “There is a wheel which revolves in this world.” —Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 151b

Rather than elevating poverty to a form of righteousness, Jesus is instead calling for a revolution of imagination around the nature of what we consider true blessing.

Real intimacy is a product of solitude.

Reality was dawning on him and he hated reality. If you were him, so would you.

Real poverty is when hunger pangs force from my mind all thoughts but those of food. Real poverty is when the children are not dressed warmly enough for winter. Real poverty is when the housing we can afford is not adequate to the needs of our families. On the other hand, real poverty is - equally - when I have eaten so much that I am uncomfortable, and again, my thoughts center on food. Or when I have so many clothes that I have to spend a lot of mental energy making choices among them or finding ways to store them. Or when, regardless of my living conditions, I am discontent and brooding about how to have more. Real poverty is when material things are uppermost and pressing - whether because we have too few or too many of them. It is poverty, because the human mind and spirit are made for higher things, worthier pursuits.

Recent evidence confirms that retail prices of essential consumer goods in poor countries are not appreciably lower than in the United States or Western Europe. In fact, with deregulation and "free trade", the cost of living in many Third World cities is now higher than in the United States. My experience in Latin America and Haiti is that the prices of meat, fish and fresh vegetables are about the same as in the United States. Can you imagine eating on less than one dollar a day?

Rebels usually have something to complain about, and if they don't they make it up. All too often the really disadvantaged are in no position to rebel; they just suffer quietly.

Redeem every minute of your life and convert it into greatness.

Re: Google's worth exceeding that of Russian stock market. Now, that adds up to a lot of moolah...nevertheless through social (EYES) maybe they will be able to see immediate ways help solve our global dollar dilemmas of poverty and economic disparity & injustice.

Relationship problems are for rich people. Poor people have things like hunger, Bills, Clothes, and medicine..

Religion is one of the oils with which we alleviate the friction between those who have a lot and those who have nothing.

Respect is reverence out of love, Fear is reverence out of hate.Choose Wisely

Rich can live better than poor but they cannot live without poor.

Rich people is people who only cares for themselves, and their money but, poor people doesn't care how much money they have because they have a big heart

Rich people read their bills. Poor people dread theirs.

Riches are easier to amass than virtues.

Rich gets richer with the expenses of the poorest

Right is on the side of the hungry.

Run! Go perfect your crafts. Run! Go use your creativity.

Run well and win in this race of life by converting your time into added values and products.

Sadly, so many people stand and watch their life melt away every day without taking advantage of it to produce something of worth.

Saving lives starts with bringing everyone in. Our societies will be healthiest when they have no outsiders. We should strive for that. We have to keep working to reduce poverty and disease. We have to help outsiders resist the power of people who want to keep them out. But we have to do our inner work as well: We have to wake up to the ways we exclude. We have to open our arms and our hearts to the people we’ve pushed to the margins. It’s not enough to help outsiders fight their way in—the real triumph will come when we no longer push anyone out.

Scholars talk about the endless cycle of poverty and racism and classism and crime. But I don't see it as a cycle, as a circle. I see it as a locked room filled with the people who share my DNA. This room has recently been set afire and there's only one escape hatch, ten feet off the ground. And I know I have to build a ladder out of the bones of my fallen family in order to climb to safety. pg 311

Schedule time for focused effort.

School taught me to run from poverty, life taught me to run from greed.

Self-improvement is possible only through time conversion in solitude.

Seeing myself or my church or my denomination as "the blessing" — like so many mission trips to help "those less fortunate than ourselves" — can easily descend into a blend of  benevolence and paternalism. We can start to see the "poor" as supporting characters in a big story about how noble, selfless, and helpful we are.

Self-discovery is the key to knowing what to do with your life.

Se não tem escola, passa para a sacola

Seeing the poor as one vast homogenous mass, we overlook that saving ten children from a painful death by hunger does make a real difference, all the difference for these children, and that this difference is quite significant even when many other children remain hungry.

Self-observation is simply the observation of an internal state and an external event. It is pure awareness, which gives one the ability to choose one's actions. Only by having the choice can one perform what is right.

Ser pobre implica una más inmediata posesión de la realidad, un atropellar el primer gusto áspero de las cosas: conocimiento que parece faltar a los ricos, como si todo les llegara filtrado.

She had spears of straw and grass in her hair, not like Ophelia gone mad through contact with Hamlet's madness, but because she had slept in some stable loft.

Seven thousand of them were indicted and arraigned, and then they entered the maw of the criminal justice system—right here—through the gateway into Gibraltar, where the vans were lined up. That was about 150 new cases, 150 more pumping hearts and morose glares, every week that the courts and the Bronx County District Attorney's Office were open. And to what end? The same stupid, dismal, pathetic, horrifying crimes were committed day in and day out, all the same. What was accomplished by assistant D.A.'s, by any of them, through all this relentless stirring of the muck? The Bronx crumbled and decayed a little more, and a little more blood dried in the cracks. The Doubts! One thing was accomplished for sure. The system was fed, and those vans brought in the chow.

She fell on the bread and cheese as if she were a lioness. Did lions eat cheese? He didn’t know. He knew Mrs Prater’s kitten ate cheese. He ate anything. Poor bloody animal. Still, he was a slum cat, no reason why his life should be better than a humans' sad ruddy existence.

She had developed a number of habits in her younger years, none of which carried with them a bright future, and the things she would offer to do for a couple of dollars would make the Devil blush.

She is drawn to the river, and all its hideous, dead-eyed treasures: rot-bloated cats, and cold-meat corpses of unwanted infants, eels plucking at their tender fingers and toes.

She missed -- without knowing what she missed-- paints and crayons

She’s a lean vixen: I can see the ribs, the sly trickster’s eyes, filled with longing and desperation, the skinny feet, adept at lies. Why encourage the notion of virtuous poverty? It’s only an excuse for zero charity. Hunger corrupts, and absolute hunger corrupts absolutely,

She had been the daughter of a half-insane, mean old woman and an ineffective alcoholic father, and she had grown up poor and unwanted. She had been an unmarried welfare mother and finally become a drunk herself.

She was not granted the luxury of forgetting her lower middle-class existence where life hangs by an unseen thread to every hope and where every slash of disappointment shrinks the life further.

Sigh: who was it who said that to get into heaven, you needed a letter of recommendation from the poor?

Should happiness and success be hidden, in view of the misery and poverty around. Would it be a sign of selfishness and un-intellectual behavior, if we admit to a pursuit of happiness? Could it, on the contrary, not work out as a motivation and an incentive? When giving voice to our happiness, could it not be perceived as a positive challenge? Could happiness not be contagious and become a salutary infectious syndrome? A beneficial infection. ( "Happy days are back again" )

Shyness is a luxury reserved for those who are above the poverty line. To a beggar, being shy is deadly.

Sickness made itself at home in their close, dark rooms, disease thriving in the absence of windows and hope.

Silently, she wondered whether this was the same desperation, the same impotence that grips many men by their shirts, their T-shirts, their work vests, gripping them equally hard, shaking them and leading them to drink,to beating or the noose. Was this it?

Since time comes in seconds, in minutes and in hours, we must learn to convert time, else, it will slip away and can never be regained.

Since everything is destructible including life, you should, therefore, make the best out of life while it lasts.

Since life comes just once, I encourage you to give it your best shot. I dare you to maximize your life.