Best 2723 quotes in «poverty quotes» category

What extreme poverty really means is that no matter how hard you work, you’re trapped. You can’t get out. Your efforts barely matter. You’ve been left behind by those who could life you up.

What I Have Lived For Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found. With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

What in the name of reason does this nation expect of a people, poorly trained and hard pressed in severe economic competition, without political rights, and with ludicrously inadequate common-school facilities? What can it expect but crime and listlessness, offset here and there by the dogged struggles of the fortunate and more determined who are themselves buoyed by the hope that in due time the country will come to its senses?

What keeps a poor child in Appalachia poor is not what keeps a poor child in Chicago poor - even if from a distance, the outcomes look the same. And what keeps an able-bodied black woman poor is not what keeps a disabled white man poor, even if the outcomes look the same.

What seems like the right thing to do could also be the hardest thing you have ever done in your life

What's important to recognize is that in the U.S. today, tens of millions of kids start life on a uneven playing field. Imagine having to try to run a race if you started ten yards behind everyone else, hadn't eaten breakfast that morning, or maybe even dinner the night before, had slept in your third homeless shelter that month and didn't have shoes that fit right. Catching up would be really, really hard. With almost 32 million American kids living in low-income families, that means four out of ten runners are starting far back.

What’s interesting is that most free-marketers don’t seem to want a free market at all, but a status quo market. The market in the United States is anything but free. If it were, big business would have to survive without corporate welfare to the tune of about $1 trillion (that’s trillion) in government subsidies, the majority of which, about $650 billion, go to the fossil fuel industry! They are living off of the public dole on subsidies totaling billions of dollars—that we hand out either directly, or through tax breaks for their big corporations—with the false assumption that they are creating jobs. They are not. They are creating yachts, Leer Jets, and McMansions with swimming pools.

What’s interesting is that most free-marketers don’t seem to want a free market at all, but a status quo market. The market in the United States is anything but free. If it were, big business would have to survive without corporate welfare to the tune of about $1 trillion (that’s trillion) in government subsidies, the majority of which, about $650 billion, go to the fossil fuel industry! They are living off of the public dole on subsidies totaling billions of dollar—that we hand out either directly, or through tax breaks for their big corporations—with the false assumption that they are creating jobs. They are not. They are creating yachts, Leer Jets, and McMansions with swimming pools.

What the hell’s the matter with you men? Are you cowards as well as stupid? You boys make me sick. I’m done with you. You hear me? I want you to go back to your places now and stay with your children until I say you’re needed. “Tell your wives and your older children to bring with them dish pans and cooking pots. Tell them to bring their stirring spoons and ladles. Tell them to carry a mop over their shoulders. We’re goin’ to march on that mine and we’re going to stand guard to see that no scabs are allowed in. Do you hear me?” — Mother Jones

What we are experiencing is experiential poverty. Such poverty may not only be about a lack of experiences, where nothing is happening. An abundance of activities can also create a feeling of experiential poverty. And this last point is interesting. Things just get to be too much. the problem, according to Lars Fr. H. Svendsen, is that we carry on seeking "increasingly more powerful experiences" instead of pausing to breathe deeply, shut out the world and use the time to experience ourselves. The idea that boredom can be avoided by constantly pursuing something new, being available around the clock, sending messages and clicking further, watching something you haven't yet seen, is naive. The more you try to avoid boredom, the more bored you become. Routine is like that too... Busying oneself becomes a goal in and of itself, instead of allowing that same restlessness to lead you somewhere further.

What will support you consists in your gift, so until you find yourself you will be poor

What you do with your time now will dictate how your life will become tomorrow.

What you give today you get tomorrow.

When Americans find out I grew up in the tenements, the question they invariably ask me is “how did you end up there?” Americans, it seems, find comfort in reasons and explanations. They honestly believe that if they can find the reason for someone else’s misfortune, they can avoid that misfortune themselves. If they could find out how I ended up in the tenements, they could assure themselves that it could never have happened to them.

When an officer finds themselves arresting pastors that are feeding people who have nothing, they should know they’re on the wrong side.

When considering the problem of hunger, the main emphasis should not be placed on the poverty of those starving but on the cruelty of people who have in abundance

Whenever governments wanted to achieve some end, often involving population growth, they restricted access to birth control and/or criminalized birth control unless, of course, the population growth concerned the poor, in which case, contraception was enthusiastically promoted. Historically, society has only wanted the "right kind of people" to have a right to life. We shouldn't forget that fact.

Whenever we lose time, we are actually losing our life.

When everyone is poor you don't know you're poor. My father worked so some of the boys thought I was actually rich.

Whenever you make up your mind to go into solitude, you must decide first of all what you want to go and do there.

When giving money to the amputated, you must put it directly into their pockets.

When great men die in the race of life, they continue to live because the world can still benefit from their products.

When it comes to greatness, God doesn’t choose for man.

When people love each other, they are content with very little. When we have light and joy in our hearts, we don't need material wealth. The most loving communities are often the poorest. If our own life is luxurious and wasteful, we can't approach poor people. If we love people, we want to identify with them and share with them.

When I say time must be converted, what I'm saying is that seconds must be converted, minutes must be converted, hours must be converted and days must be converted.

When I was poor, I was rich because I was happy; when I was wealthy, I was poor because I was sad.

When Mary asserts explicitly that God is on the side of the poor, we can understand it within the tension of what it means to be blessed as the poor in spirit. 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. Jesus is here declaring that the humble and repentant heart is the fertile soil of his kingdom.

When poverty comes, wealth looks back at you. Will you seek it again?

When selecting a one-night stand, a heterosexual woman who is materialistic is a trillion times more likely to choose a sexually unattractive poor man who seems rich over a sexually attractive rich man who seems poor.

[W]hen it's slow, they send you home, and when it's busy, they expect you to stay late. They also expect you to be able to come in to cover someone's shift if a co-worker gets sick at the last minute. Basically, they're expecting you to be available to work all the time. Scheduling is impossible.

When it was cooler, Trazada made a simple meal of sausage, cheese, and bread. She had schooled herself to wait dinner until hunger urged her to eat; it gave seasoning to poor food that no spice could furnish. ("The Generalissimo's Butterfly")

When people think of food stamps they don't envision someone like me, someone plain faced and white, someone like the girl they'd known in highschool, someone who'd been quiet but nice, someone like a neighbor, someone like them. Maybe that made them too nervous about their own situation. Maybe they saw in me the chance of their own fragile circumstances, that with one lost job, one divorce, they'd be in the same place as me.

When school vacates, your life vacates alongside. What a tragedy! What a waste of life!

When tenants relinquished protections by falling behind in rent or otherwise breaking their rental agreement, landlords could respond by neglecting repairs. Or as Sherrena put it to tenants: “If I give you a break, you give me a break.” Tenants could trade their dignity and children’s health for a roof over their head. 13 Between 2009 and 2011, nearly half of all renters in Milwaukee experienced a serious and lasting housing problem. 14 More than 1 in 5 lived with a broken window; a busted appliance; or mice, cockroaches, or rats for more than three days. One-third experienced clogged plumbing that lasted more than a day. And 1 in 10 spent at least a day without heat. African American households were the most likely to have these problems—as were those where children slept. Yet the average rent was the same, whether an apartment had housing problems or did not. Tenants who fell behind either had to accept unpleasant, degrading, and sometimes dangerous housing conditions or be evicted. But from a business point of view, this arrangement could be lucrative.

When the rich and the powerful rise they leave the powerless and the poor without possibility.

When the going gets tough: the poor close their eyes, the rich open their wallets.

When the purse becomes empty, the mind becomes full of issues.

When the statistics have a face, poverty becomes personal.

When they passed a maintenance site in the road bed, Einstein stopped next to a worker who was smashing stones and silently observed this boy with torn clothes and dirty face and hands. He asked your father how much the boy earned each day. After asking the boy, he told Einstein: five cents.

When they think about Africa, they think about War, Poverty, Hunger and Diseases.

When we are able to listen to someone else's story with an open heart and hear their experience, which may look different than ours, we begin to close the gap between them and us.

When people ask me how come I have written over three hundred books my response to them is take advantage of time.

When you are able to overcome distractions, then you will be able to do something more specific, something more precise and definite with the time that you have.

When women suffer, marriages suffer. When marriages suffer, children suffer. When children suffer, families suffer. When families suffer, communities suffer. When communities suffer, societies suffer. When societies suffer, nations suffer. When nations suffer, the world suffers. When the world suffers, God suffers.

When you are able to create values in yourself or in others then you have won the race.

When you are just living your mundane life; just walking about or you are just sleeping and waking up and just chatting on the telephone and on social media; you are wasting life.

When you are stressed and challenged by hardships just smile through it as frowning won’t help in changing the situation

When you can actually monitor your passing life and be in control and be in charge of your time and making sure that you are actually converting every passing day into something, then you will never regret it.

When you can only remember the mundane things you did but do not have any valuable products to show for your time, then you are a time spender.

When you can actually measure your day by how much time is converted into products, then you are a great force on the earth.