Abject Poverty Quotes

The world at large is less inequitable today than at any time in history. Number of people in abject poverty, as a percentage, is at all-time low. ~ Bill Gates

We must begin by acknowledging that there is a complete absence of two things in Indian Society. One of these is equality. On the social plane we have an India based on the principles of graded inequality, which means elevation for some and degradation for others. On the economic plane we have a society in which there are some who have immense wealth as against many who live in abject poverty. ~ B.R. Ambedkar

We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources. ~ Jane Goodall

There are three ways YOU can GET OUT of abject poverty. The first is inheritance which is always volatile and very scarce. The second is Education which very sustainable. The third and the most EFFECTIVE way is DEATH (or to Die ). But I recommend YOU to Choose Education ~ Oppong Amankwaa

There are still hundreds of millions, billions of people living in abject poverty around the world. They need electricity. They need electricity they can count on, that they can afford. They need fuel to cook their food on that's not animal dung. ~ Rex Tillerson

It is more than petty treason to the Republic, to call a free citizen a servant. The whole class of young women, whose bread depends upon their labour, are taught to believe that the most abject poverty is preferable to domestic service. Hundreds of half-naked girls work in the paper-mills, or in any other manufactory, for less than half the wages they would receive in service; but they think their equality is compromised by the latter, and nothing but the wish to obtain some particular article of finery will ever induce them to submit to it. ~ Frances Trollope

Failing to recognize the worth of beauty independent from utilitarian function is symptomatic of an abject poverty of the soul. It's like saying that if we turned St. Peter's Basilica into a parking garage, we would improve it by making it practical. There's a word for this, and it is vandalism. We must not vandalize the faith in the name of pragmatism! ~ Brian Zahnd

I had several teachers who inspired me, in both the public school system and the Upward Bound program. I needed several, because I lived in such abject poverty and dysfunction. And they're still in my life today, because I consider them to be friends, actually. ~ Viola Davis

The reason that the World Trade Center got hit is because there are a lot of people living in abject poverty out there who don't have any hope for a better life. ~ Ted Turner

Problem is, a lot of Christians who believe the world is headed for imminent destruction don't use their eschatology to motivate altruism. Some, in fact, use their belief in the coming apocalypse to justify negligence and destruction. Critics of pretrib theology point out that rapture obsession can make Christians overlook glaring social needs in the present, like genocide, disease, and abject poverty. ~ Kevin Roose

With an agenda dominated by global security and U.N. reform, it appears that the decisions needed to lift millions of people from abject poverty are not being given the prominence they deserve. ~ Kumi Naidoo

When you see in places like Africa and parts of Asia abject poverty, hungry children and malnutrition around you, and you look at yourself as being people who have well being and comforts, I think it takes a very insensitive, tough person not to feel they need to do something. ~ Ratan Tata

The perfect symmetry between the dismantling of the wall of shame and the end of limitless Nature is invisible only to the rich Western democracies. The various manifestations of socialism destroyed both their peoples and their ecosystems, whereas the powers of the North and the West have been able to save their peoples and some of their countrysides by destroying the rest of the world and reducing its peoples to abject poverty. Hence a double tragedy: the former socialist societies think they can solve both their problems by imitating the West; the West thinks it has escaped both problems and believes it has lessons for others even as it leaves the Earth and its people to die. The West thinks it is the sole possessor of the clever trick that will allow it to keep on winning indefinitely, whereas it has perhaps already lost everything. ~ Anonymous

But so successful was this venture that Magrathea itself soon became the richest planet of all time and the rest of the Galaxy was reduced to abject poverty. And so the system broke down, the Empire collapsed, ~ Douglas Adams

I came from abject poverty. There was nowhere to go but up. ~ Kirk Douglas

When people are kept in abject poverty and illiteracy while others grow rich and "develop their personalities" at the former's expense we speak of oppression; when structures and persons that perpetuate powerlessness are replaced by structures that allow people to stand on their own feet and have their own voice, we speak of liberation.2 Both ~ Miroslav Volf

Open markets offer the only realistic hope of pulling billions of people in developing countries out of abject poverty, while sustaining prosperity in the industrialized world. ~ Kofi Annan

Success is relative. We shouldn't compare the financial success between a person born into riches and the one born into abject poverty. ~ Assegid Habtewold

Imagine living in abject poverty and not knowing anything other than that for generations. Or alternatively, imagine being born into a really wealthy family, but there was no real love. Everyone's living these extraordinary, interesting lives whether they know it or not. ~ Annie Lennox

through internships to work at our test sites in Africa. The work they do there benefits the local communities and the students themselves. Together we can fight hunger and the abject poverty that blights these regions. "But in this age of technological evolution, as the first world races ahead, widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots, it's ~ E.L. James

The rest of the trailer reeked of cat piss and abject poverty. ~ Ernest Cline

There is nothing in all the world greater than freedom. It is worth paying for; it is worth going to jail for. I would rather be a free pauper than a rich slave. I would rather die in abject poverty with my convictions than live in inordinate riches with the lack of self respect. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

For the first time ever we are capable of removing abject poverty, illiteracy and the diseases of poverty from the human condition. The current intensification of global economic integration has demonstrated that there is enough knowledge, technology and capital to bring development to all the people of the world. ~ Clare Short

So, there it was in a nutshell. Poverty led him to religion, religion to education, education to lust, lust to communism. And Communism had brought him back full circle to poverty. ~ Colin Cotterill

Nowhere in the world, in no act of genocide, in no war, are so many people killed per minute, per hour and per day as those who are killed by hunger and poverty on our planet. ~ Fidel Castro

It (LSD) opened my eyes. We only use one-tenth of our brain. Just think of what we could accomplish if we could only tap that hidden part! It would mean a whole new world if the politicians would take LSD. There wouldn't be any more war or poverty or famine. ~ Paul McCartney

I believe the war on poverty is a more American idea than the war on the war on poverty. I believe that most people feel like that. And I believe that it ain't over till it's over. ~ Bruce Springsteen

British colonists promoted a dual agenda: one involved reducing poverty back in England, and the other called for transporting the idle and unproductive to the New World. After ~ Nancy Isenberg

Since I became First Minister, I have made clear my priority to alleviate poverty and tackle inequality in Scotland. Ensuring that everyone can do better in life will not only make Scotland fairer, but it will also make it a more prosperous place. ~ Nicola Sturgeon

The impact of NCDs is not only affecting the urban populations but also rural poor. This is compounding the basic problem of poverty. ~ Marty Natalegawa

The lives of the thirty thousand children who die of starvation each day is like 6 september 11ths every single day, a silent tsunami that happens every week. ~ Shane Claiborne

The flesh is that voice in your head that tells you, "If it feels good do it." It tells us that we need things when we don't, and if we followed it we'd sleep too late, eat too much, and eventually come to poverty. That's where the heart wants to lead us. ~ Darlene Schacht

When an ecstatic is asked the question, What is it that love dares the self to do? she will answer: Love dares the self to leave itself behind, to enter into poverty. ~ Anne Carson

Charlie and Daniel think money and happiness are not related. They don't know what poor is. They don't know that poverty is a sharp knife carving away at you. They don't know what it does to a body. To a mind. ~ Nicola Yoon

For too long, we've attached some mythic notion to government solutions, and yet, 40 years after we began the War on Poverty, poverty still abounds. ~ Rand Paul

It is the peculiar lowness of poverty that you discover first; the shifts that it puts you to, the complicated meanness, the crust-wiping. ~ George Orwell

The seven deadly sins ... food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven millstones from Man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the millstones are lifted. ~ George Bernard Shaw

From books, I winnowed the glue that held together my psyche as it struggled to stay whole. It was from stories and myths that I learned to dream, to imagine a different life, to realize potentials and probabilities other than those of the painful, poverty-mired existence I found myself in as a child. With a book I could hide in a corner, safe from the heavy hand and belt of my stepfather, and for a while not worry about where our next meal would come from, or where we would be sleeping that night, or when my mother would break and have to be sent yet again to the mental institution. Books, for me, we tiny life rafts that I clung to desperately. ~ J. Don Cook

The tragedy of civil wars in countries like Angola and Mozambique is that they left many civilians maimed. Poverty is the reason HIV/AIDS spread so rapidly in the African townships and slums. Poverty is the real killer. ~ Miriam Makeba

I enter the ancient courts of the men of antiquity where affectionately received by them I pasture on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born, where I am not too timid to speak with them and ask them about the reasons for their actions; and they in their courtesy answer me; and for four hours of time I feel no weariness, I forget every trouble, I do not fear poverty, death does not dismay me; I transfer all of myself into them... ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction of religion. A country which forbids an established church by law is prey to any denomination. The best that can be said is that this is pluralism of a kind. ~ Christopher Hitchens

We say we value the legacy we leave the next generation and then saddle that generation with mountains of debt. We say we believe in equal opportunity but then stand idle while millions of American children languish in poverty. We insist that we value family, but then structure our economy and organize our lives so as to ensure that our families get less and less of our time. ~ Barack Obama

Our Lord loves you and loves you tenderly; and if He does not let you feel the sweetness of His love, it is to make you more humble and abject in your own eyes. ~ Pio Of Pietrelcina

A little drop of Native American blood was exciting and unique. But a full-blooded Native American…she was horrified."
Cecily's opinion of the legendary Maureen dropped eighty points. She ground her teeth together. She couldn't imagine anyone being ashamed of such a proud heritage.
He looked down at her and laughed despite himself. "I can hear you boiling over. No, you wouldn't be ashamed of me. But you're unique. You help, however you can. You see the poverty around you, and you don't stick your nose up at it. You roll up your sleeves and do what you can to help alleviate it. You've made me ashamed, Cecily."
"Ashamed? But, why?"
"Because you see beauty and hope where I see hopelessness." He rubbed his artificial arm, as if it hurt him. "I've got about half as much as Tate has in foreign banks. I'm going to start using some of it for something besides exotic liquor. One person can make a difference. I didn't know that, until you came along."
She smiled and touched his arm gently. "I'm glad."
"You could marry me," he ventured, looking down at her with a smile. "I'm no bargain, but I'd be good to you. I'd never even drink a beer again."
"You need someone to love you, Colby. I can't."
He grimaced. "I could say the same thing to you. But I could love you, I think, given time."
"You'd never be Tate."
He drew in a long breath. "Life is never simple. It's like a puzzle. Just when we think we've got it solved, pieces of it fly in all ~ Diana Palmer

The crisis in America that we barely notice anymore is that we've become two nations - divided by poverty, opportunity, and race. It's like a neighbor's car alarm that we don't hear anymore because it rings so often. ~ Arianna Huffington

Doing unnecessary things waste time.
Buying unnecessary things waste money.
Doing both cause Poverty. ~ De Philosopher DJ Kyos

People are wrong when they think that an unemployed man only worries about losing his wages; on the contrary, an illiterate man, with the work habit in his bones, needs work even more than he needs money. An educated man can put up with enforced idleness, which is one of the worst evils of poverty. But a man like Paddy, with no means of filling up time, is as miserable out of work as a dog on the chain. That is why it is such nonsense to pretend that those who have 'come down in the world' are to be pitied above all others.
The man who really merits pity is the man who has been down from the start,
and faces poverty with a blank, resourceless mind. ~ George Orwell

A writer is anyone who follows only the truth of who they are, without ever relying on anything other than the poverty and solitude of that truth. In this respect, children and women in love are born writers. ~ Christian Bobin

What is the good news to the poor? Christ took your poverty at the cross and gave you the riches of Abraham. The chains of poverty have been broken at the cross. ~ John Hagee

There is nothing perfectly secure but poverty. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Nor am I nostalgic, as a French philosopher once wrote, for a lost poverty. I am nostalgic for the solidarity and sharing a modest existence can sometimes bring. ~ Alice Walker

The exultation of poverty as a spiritual virtue is of the ego, not the spirit. A person acting from a motivation of contribution and service rises to such a level of moral authority that worldly success is a natural result. ~ Marianne Williamson

I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the economic and social systems that we have designed for ourselves; the institutions and concepts that make up that system; the policies that we pursue. ~ Muhammad Yunus

The imbalance I speak of in the world, which we see manifested in wars, violence, poverty and other depressed social conditions stems from a lack of knowledge. ~ Frederick Lenz

I am so proud to be from New Orleans and to be one of those people who had been displaced. I wasn't there during that time, but that's where I come from, that kind of poverty, and I'm very, very proud of that because it's given me my history. ~ Tyler Perry

The stark truth is that as long as the welfare state makes it possible for young women - or teenage girls - to have children without a husband and survive without a job, out-of-wedlock births will remain ruinously high, and the inner city will continue to be marked by crime, poverty, and despair. ~ David Boaz

Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable than material improvement. Knowledge is a viaticum. Though is a prime necessity; truth is nourishment, like wheat. A reasoning faculty, deprived of knowledge and wisdom, pines away. We should feel the same pity for minds that do not eat as for stomachs. If there be anything sadder than a body perishing for want of bread, it is a mind dying of hunger for lack of light. All progress tends toward the solution. Some day, people will be amazed. As the human race ascends, the deepest layers will naturally emerge from the zone of distress. The effacement of wretchedness will be effected by a simple elevation level. ~ Victor Hugo

I saw the poverty; I say the prosperity. Both have fundamental problems. ~ Debasish Mridha

It is certainly true that cooking is therapeutic, creative and all those other faintly creepy self-helpish words. I would love to tell you that learning to cook was part of my journey toward actualization. I would love to tell Oprah this. I would love to tell Oprah this while weeping. But I learned to cook for a much simpler reason: in the abject hope that people would spend time with me if I put good things in their mouth. It is, in other words (like practically everything else I do), a function of my desperation for emotional connection and acclaim. ~ Steve Almond

Nothing is interesting other than deleting your name from the book of poverty and misery. ~ Auliq Ice

The joy of God has gone through the poverty of the manger and the distress of the cross; therefore it is invincible and irrefutable. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Aggressive capitalism leads the world, and we can see the results, especially in Europe: more poverty for the vast majority, and more riches for a few. ~ Costa-Gavras

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

This time is very important in your life because God wants to lift this generation from failures, poverty, and unbelief ~ Sunday Adelaja

Ruby Bates, one of the young white girls, was a remarkable person. She told me she had been driven into prostitution when she was thirteen. She had been working in a textile mill for a pittance. When she asked for a raise, the boss told her to make it up by going with the workers. She told me there was nothing else she could do ... Ruby Bates was a remarkable woman. Underneath it all - the poverty, the degradation - she was decent, pure. Here was an illiterate white girl, all of whose training had been clouded by the myths of white supremacy, who, in the struggle for the lives of these nine innocent boys, had come to see the role she was being forced to play. As a murderer. She turned against her oppressors ... I shall never forget her. ~ Studs Terkel

A recent report by UNEP and Interpol estimated that between 50 to 90 per cent of logging in key tropical countries of the Amazon basin, Central Africa and South East Asia is being carried out by organized crime. This threatens not only attempts to eradicate poverty and deforestation but also efforts to combat climate change. ~ Achim Steiner