113 Thought-Provoking Poverty Quotes

Exploring the complex subject of poverty requires reflection and deep understanding. It is a multifaceted issue that affects millions around the globe, touching upon various aspects of life, from basic needs and education to dignity and empowerment. Words have the power to illuminate these complexities, spark dialogue, and inspire change. In this spirit, we have gathered a collection of 113 thought-provoking quotes on poverty. These insightful words aim to challenge perceptions, broaden perspectives, and ignite conversations about a world where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. Let these quotes serve as a source of enlightenment and motivation as we delve into the human stories and social dynamics that underpin the issue of poverty.

1. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower

2. “Anywhere you have extreme poverty and no national health insurance, no promise of health care regardless of social standing, that's where you see the sharp limitations of market-based health care. ” - Paul Farmer

3. “It is a common condition of being poor... you are always afraid that the good things in your life are temporary, that someone can take them away, because you have no power beyond your own brute strength to stop them.” - Rick Bragg

4. “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” - Mahatma Gandhi

5. “Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.” - Aristotle

6. “Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.” - Plato

7. “In the past 20 years alone, it adds up to more death than were caused by all the civil and international wars adn government repression of the entire twentieth century, the century of Hitler and Stalin. How much would we give to prevent those horrors? Yet how little are we doing to prevent today's even larger toll and all the misery that it involves? I believe that if you read this book to the end, and look honestly and carefully at our situation, assessing both the facts and the ethical arguments, you will agree that we must act.” - Peter Singer

8. “There is no Them. There are only facets of Us.” - John Green

9. “Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect.” - Hunter S. Thompson

10. “The real opposition is that between the ego-bound man, whose existence is structured by the principle of having, and the free man, who has overcome his egocentricity.” - Erich Fromm

11. “The obscenities of this country are not girls like you. It is the poverty which is obscene, and the criminal irresponsibility of the leaders who make this poverty a deadening reality. The obscenities in this country are the places of the rich, the new hotels made at the expense of the people, the hospitals where the poor die when they get sick because they don't have the money either for medicines or services. It is only in this light that the real definition of obscenity should be made.” - F. Sionil José

12. “Poverty without a people's government looks like hopelessness, but to see poverty in organized communities is to see relief-in-progress.” - Holly Near

13. “Our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcast weeps.” - Brennan Manning

14. “They [Harvard academia] liked the poor, but didn't like the smell of the poor.” - Chris Hedges

15. “Ард түмэн үхрийн мах худалдан авч чадахгүй байна, гэтэл архи түүнээс нь хямдхан байдаг, чухам иймээс л, орос эрчүүд ядуурлаас болж архи ууцгааж байна! Ард түмэн ном худалдан авч чадахгүй байна, яагаад гэвэл зах дээр Гоголь, Белинскийн аль нь ч байхгүй, харин хямд архи л дүүрэн бий, чухам иймээс л орос эрчүүд боловсролгүй бүдүүлгээсээ болж ууж байна. Дмитрий Писарев” - Venedikt Erofeev

16. “I do not believe that one can become rich without being a shark; a sensitive man will never amass wealth.” - Petrus Borel

17. “To get rich, one must have but a single idea, one fixed, hard, immutable thought: the desire to make a heap of gold. And in order to increase this heap of gold, one must be inflexible, a usurer, thief, extortionist, and murderer! And one must especially mistreat the small and the weak!And when this mountain of gold has been amassed, one can climb up on it, and from up on the summit, a smile on one’s lips, one can contemplate the valley of poor wretches that one has created.” - Petrus Borel

18. “[There] are people who make a complete and utter mockery of 'democracy' and 'equality' - they're the casualties of the primitive rules of competition which run our society, and the welfare state just keeps them alive. That's all.” - Michael Palin

19. “I, on the other hand, interrupt people because my thoughts fly out of my mouth. My handbag's full of rubbish. And I want to do something that matters with my life. Right now I'd like to write plays, sing in musicals, and/or rid the world of poverty, violence, cruelty, and right-wing conservative politics.” - Alison Larkin

20. “When a destitute mother starts earning an income, her dreams of success invariably center around her children. A woman's second priority is the household. She wants to buy utensils, build a stronger roof, or find a bed for herself and her family. A man has an entirely different set of priorities. When a destitute father earns extra income, he focuses more attention on himself. Thus money entering a household through a woman brings more benefits to the family as a whole.” - Muhammad Yunus

21. “While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it.While there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” - Eugene Debs

22. “Th direct elimination of elimination of poverty should be the objective of all development aid. Development should be viewed as a human rights issue, not as a question of simply increasing the gross national product (GNP).” - Muhammad Yunus

23. “If you go out into the real world, you cannot miss seeing that the poor are poor not because they are untrained or illiterate but because they cannot retain the returns of their labor. They have no control over capital, and it is the ability to control capital that gives people the power to rise out of poverty.” - Muhammad Yunus

24. “I believe that the emphasis on curbing population growth diverts attention from the more vital issue of pursuing policies that allow the population to take care of itself.” - Muhammad Yunus

25. “A commission of haberdashers could alone have reported whatthe rest of her poor dress was made of, but it had a strong generalresemblance to seaweed, with here and there a gigantic tea-leaf.Her shawl looked particularly like a tea-leaf after long infusion.” - Charles Dickens

26. “There’s no way that Michael Jackson or whoever Jackson should have a million thousand droople billion dollars and then there’s people starving. There’s no way! There’s no way that these people should own planes and there people don’t have houses. Apartments. Shacks. Drawers. Pants! I know you’re rich. I know you got 40 billion dollars, but can you just keep it to one house? You only need ONE house. And if you only got two kids, can you just keep it to two rooms? I mean why have 52 rooms and you know there’s somebody with no room?! It just don’t make sense to me. It don’t.” - Tupac Shakur

27. “A community that is growing rich and seeks only to defend its goods and its reputation is dying. It has ceased to grow in love. A community is alive when it is poor and its members feel they have to work together and remain united, if only to ensure that they can all eat tomorrow!” - Jean Vanier

28. “At the heart of the celebration, there are the poor. If [they] are excluded, it is not longer a celebration. [...] A celebration must always be a festival of the poor.” - Jean Vanier

29. “And you spend your day going around from the house of the washerman to the house of the sweeper, asking about this one's son and that one's nephew, but spending no time with your own family. It is no secret that many people here think that you are a communist.'Rasheed reflected that this probably meant only that he loathed the poverty and injustice endemic to the village, and that he made no particular secret of it.” - Vikram Seth

30. “Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.” - Muhammad Ali

31. “And that’s when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friends with the folks in struggle, we start to ask why people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to charity. One of my friends has a shirt marked with the words of late Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara: “When I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist.” Charity wins awards and applause but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for living out of love that disrupts the social order that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them.” - Shane Claiborne

32. “Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.” - Coco Chanel

33. “So I say a name, even if self-bestowed, is better than a number. In the register of the potter's field I shall soon have both. What wealth!” - Ambrose Bierce

34. “The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied...but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which as beggar is a reminder of nothing.” - John Berger

35. “Certainly, the wealth of the rich is a consequence of the poverty of the poor. (Lori Altmann, p. 85)” - Mev Puleo

36. “The man with toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.” - George Bernard Shaw

37. “Back in Russia we were dirt-poor. Here in the West we are still poor but have risen above the dirt to tower alongside stalks of grass!” - Vera Nazarian

38. “In war," answered the weaver, "the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor. We must work to live, and they give us such mean wages that we die. We toil for them all day long, and they heap up gold in their coffers, and our children fade away before their time, and the faces of those we love become hard and evil. We tread out the grapes, another drinks the wine. We sow the corn, and our own board is empty. We have chains, though no eye beholds them; and are slaves, though men call us free.” - Oscar Wilde

39. “It is very expensive to give bad medical care to poor people in a rich country.” - Paul Farmer

40. “When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.” - Basil the Great

41. “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” - Anatole France

42. “It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.” - George Orwell

43. “A plongeur is a slave, and a wasted slave, doing stupid and largely unnecessary work. He is kept at work, ultimately, because of a vague feeling that he would be dangerous if he had leisure. And educated people, who should be on his side, acquiesce in the process, because they know nothing about him and consequently are afraid of him.” - George Orwell

44. “This is the basis for the most important critique of microfinance. The poor are not entrepreneurs. The idea that more than a few will turn tiny loans into a viable business is simply unrealistic.” - Ian Smillie

45. “And, conversely, she went on to herself, sneering at the Grand Duke's palace, poverty is wasted on the poor, who never know how to make the best of things, are only the rich without money, are just as useless at looking after themselves, can't handle their cash just like the rich can't, always squandering it on bright, pretty, useless things in just the same way.” - Angela Carter

46. “Fear of the mob is a superstitious fear. It is based on the idea that there is some mysterious, fundamental difference between rich and poor, as though they were two different races, like Negroes and white men. But in reality there is no such difference. The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit. Change places, and handy dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? Everyone who has mixed on equal terms with the poor knows this quite well. But the trouble is that intelligent, cultivated people, the very people who might be expected to have liberal opinions, never do mix with the poor. For what do the majority of educated people know about poverty?” - George Orwell

47. “Poverty is what you see in the eyes of a Black child living in the squatter camp.Matsime Simon Mohapi” - Matsime Simon Mohapi

48. “Mere inflation-that is, the mere issuance of more money, with the consequence of higher wages and prices-may look like the creation of more demand. But in terms of the actual production and exchange of real things it is not.” - Henry Hazlitt

49. “I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions--poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed--which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished.It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity.” - Howard Zinn

50. “A poor man is not disposed to quick and high resentment when he is among the rich: he is apt to yield to others, for he knows others are above him: he is not stiff and self-willed; he is patient with hard fare; he expects no other than to be despised, and takes it patiently; he does not take it heinously that he overlooked and but little regarded; he is prepared to be in a lowly place; he readily honours his superiors; he takes reproofs quietly; he readily honours others as above him; he easily yields to be taught, and does not claim much to his understanding and judgment; he is not over nice or humoursome, and has his spirit subdued to hard things; he is not assuming, nor apt to take much upon him, but it is natural for him to be subject to others. Thus it is with the humble Christian.” - Jonathan Edwards

51. “Royce Westmoreland stared at him with biting scorn. "I despise hypocrisy, particularly when it is coated with holiness.""May I ask for a specific example?""Fat priests," Royce replied, "with fat purses, who lecture staving peasants on the dangers of gluttony and the merits of poverty.” - Judith McNaught

52. “Remember, aid cannot achieve the end of poverty. Only homegrown development base on the dynamism of individuals and firms in free markets can do that.” - William Easterly

53. “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

54. “Without an informed electorate, politicians will continue to use the bottom billion merely for photo opportunities, rather than promoting real transformation.” - Paul Collier

55. “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.” - Paul Collier

56. “Persuading everyone to behave decently to each other because the society is so fragile is a worthy goal, but it may be more straightforward just to make the societies less fragile, which means developing their economies.” - Paul Collier

57. “For centuries, as pope and emperor tore each other apart in their quarrels over power, the excluded went on living on the fringe, like lepers, of whom true lepers are only the illustration ordained by God to make us understand this wondrous parable, so that in saying 'lepers' we would understand 'outcast, poor, simple, excluded, uprooted from the countryside, humiliated in the cities.' But we did not understand; the mystery of leprosy has continued to haunt us because we have not recognized the nature of the sign.” - Umberto Eco

58. “En el aspecto social, la inclusión es el principio básico. Nuestro lema son los pobres primero y para los pobres los mejores instrumentos, los mejores maestros, las mejores infraestructuras. La cultura para los pobres no puede ser una pobre cultura. Debe ser grande, ambiciosa, refinada, avanzada, nada de sobras. Además, ellos multiplican su efecto, porque son enormemente agradecidos ante el esfuerzo. No es práctico incorporar a su vida esa faceta como si fuera un florero.” - José Antonio Abreu

59. “Launching a turnaround takes courage. I cannot measure that and so it is not going to be included in my analysis, but behind the moments of change there are always a few people within these societies who have decided to try to make a difference.” - Paul Collier

60. “Where you live should not determine whether you live, or whether you die.” - Bono

61. “So I heard the boom of my father's rifle when he shot my best friend. A bullet only costs about two cents, and anybody can afford that.” - Sherman Alexie

62. “The surest way to remain poor is to be honest.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

63. “Such a little childTo send to be a priestling...Icy poverty” - Shiki

64. “I've never understood it,' continued Wilfred Carr, yawning. 'It's not in my line at all; I never had enough money for my own wants, let alone for two. Perhaps if I were as rich as you or Croesus I might regard it differently.' There was just sufficient meaning in the latter part of the remark for his cousin to forbear to reply to it. He continued to gaze out of the window and to smoke slowly. 'Not being as rich as Croesus - or you,' resumed Carr, regarding him from beneath lowered lids, 'I paddle my own canoe down the stream of Time, and, tying it to my friends' doorposts, go in to eat their dinners.' ("The Well")” - W.W. Jacobs

65. “[I]t is not by being richer or more powerful that a man becomes better; one is a matter of fortune, the other of virtue. Nor should she deem herself other than venal who weds a rich man rather than a poor, and desires more things in her husband than himself. Assuredly, whomsoever this concupiscence leads into marriage deserves payment rather than affection.” - Héloïse

66. “The food we were given was no more than eatable, but the patron was not mean about drink; he allowed us two litres of wine a day each, knowing that if a plongeur is not given two litres he will steal three.” - George Orwell

67. “La mala salud causa pobreza y la pobreza contribuye a empeorar la salud” - Jeffrey D. Sachs

68. “For if in careless summer daysIn groves of Ashtaroth we whored,Repentant now, when winds blow cold,We kneel before our rightful lord;The lord of all, the money-god,Who rules us blood and hand and brain,Who gives the roof that stops the wind,And, giving, takes away again;Who spies with jealous, watchful care,Our thoughts, our dreams, our secret ways,Who picks our words and cuts our clothes,And maps the pattern of our days;Who chills our anger, curbs our hope,And buys our lives and pays with toys,Who claims as tribute broken faith,Accepted insults, muted joys;Who binds with chains the poet’s wit,The navvy’s strength, the soldier’s pride,And lays the sleek, estranging shieldBetween the lover and his bride.” - George Orwell

69. “Light's all very well, brothers, but it's not easy to live with.” - Mikhail Zoshchenko

70. “I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to see how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was softened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and God.” - Charles Dickens

71. “So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use. HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862. [Translation by Isabel F. Hapgood]” - Victor Hugo

72. “People in that crowd want to make poverty history, but NOT if they have to pay for it themselves” - Ben Elton

73. “And every historic effort to forge a democratic project has been undermined by two fundamental realities: poverty and paranoia. The persistence of poverty generates levels of despair that deepen social conflict the escalation of paranoia produces levels of distrust that reinforce cultural division. Rae is the most explosive issue in American life precisely because it forces us to confront the tragic facts of poverty and paranoia despair, and distrust. In short, a candid examination of race matters takes us to the core of the crisis of American democracy (p. 107).” - Cornel West

74. “Those who reject Christianity will not be moved by Christ’s statement that poverty is blessed. But here a rather remarkable fact comes to my aid. Those who would most scornfully repudiate Christianity as a mere ‘opiate of the people’ have a contempt for the rich, that is, for all mankind except the poor. They regard the poor as the only people worth preserving from ‘liquidation’, and place in them the only hope for the human race. But this is not compatible with a belief that the effects of poverty on those who suffer it are wholly evil; it even implies that they are good. The Marxist thus finds himself in real agreement with the Christian in those two beliefs which Christianity paradoxically demands – that poverty is blessed and yet ought to be removed.” - C.S. Lewis

75. “Poverty is not only about income levels, but for lack of freedom that comes from physical insecurity” - Jacqueline Novogratz

76. “Un miros de sărac, un miros de violență, de necesitatea de a parveni.” - Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio

77. “I knew, of course, that I should be well paid for my services, but I would gladly have accepted half the sum I expected if I could have had it that night, for our little treasury was wholly exhausted, and we had not sixpence to purchase a breakfast for the following day. When the great hall door shut upon me, and I found myself on the pavement, with all the luxury and splendour on one side, and I and my desolation on the other, the contrast struck me cruelly, for I too, had been rich, and dwelt in illuminated palaces, and had a train of liveried servants at my command, and sweet music had echoed through my halls. I felt desperate, and drawing my hat over my eyes I began pacing the square, forming wild plans for the relief or escape from my misery. ("The Italian's Story")” - Catherine Crowe

78. “It might be depressing, but it's also the truth that no one has the power, the money, or the resources to save everyone on the planet from going hungry, living in poverty or allowed basic human rights. But consider the other side of this: there are people in this world who truly WOULD do all of these things for everyone if only they could. There is hope after all.” - Ashly Lorenzana

79. “The festive music died down and the granite pillars were replaced with rotted wooden beams as he continued down the alleyways. The scent of fresh flowers turned to mold, and the colorful mosiacs of honor and nobility were nonexistent. Run-down tenements were shadowed by its surrounding buildings, as if the capital itself wanted to conceal its existence.” - Evan Meekins

80. “la pauvreté est comme un mal qu'on endort en soi et qui ne donne pas trop de douleur, à condition de ne pas trop bouger. On s’y habitue, on finit par ne plus y prendre garde tant qu’on reste avec elle tapie dans l’obscurité; mais qu'on s'avise de la sortir au grand jour, et on s'effraie, on la voit enfin, si sordide qu'on hésite à l'exposer au soleil. (Ch. XIII)” - Gabrielle Roy

81. “Poverty fled, she who gives birth to virile men.” - Marcus Annaeus Lucanus

82. “God pours out his choicest blessings on those who are anxious that nothing shall stick to their hands. Individuals who value the rainy day above the present agony of the world will get no blessing from God.” - William MacDonald

83. “Poverty is a great cutter-off and riches a great shutter-off.” - Lawrence Durrell

84. “There is a kind of virtue that lies not in extraordinary actions, not in saving poor orphans from burning buildings, but in steadfastly working for a world where orphans are not poor and buildings comply with decent fire codes.” - Randy Cohen

85. “Alone, human beings can feel hunger. Alone, we can feel cold. Alone, we can feel pain. To feel poor, however, is something we do only in comparison to others.” - Eric Greitens

86. “The walls were chipped and needed paint. The windows were mostly okay but one pane was blocked with cardboard. There were fleas the exterminator couldn't kill and rats that scrabbled in the walls and mice who left droppings like a cocked snook and roaches that thrived on insecticide, even the illegal kinds.” - John Brunner

87. “We must arm ourselves with patience and wisdom and listen to the poor what they want. This is the best way to avoid the trap of ignorance, ideology and inertia on our side.” - Abhijit V. Banerjee

88. “- a verdade é ainda mais triste, Baba: não somos transparentes por não comer... nós somos transparentes porque somos pobres.” - Ondjaki

89. “I have an old hat which is not worth three francs, I have a coat which lacks buttons in front, my shirt is all ragged, my elbows are torn, my boots let in the water; for the last six weeks I have not thought about it, and I have not told you about it. You only see me at night, and you give me your love; if you were to see me in the daytime, you would give me a sou!” - Victor Hugo

90. “To me, the poor are like Bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a six-inch deep flower pot, you get a perfect replica of the tallest tree, but it is only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted; only the soil-base you provided was inadequate.Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong with their seeds. Only society never gave them a base to grow on.” - Muhammad Yunus

91. “Because to the poor, books are not diversions. Book are siege weapons.” - Joe Queenan

92. “Do not really like rich people, as they make us poor people feel dopey and inadequate. Not that we are poor. I would say we are middle. We are very, very lucky. I know that. But still, it is not right that rich people make us middle people feel dopey and inadequate.” - George Saunders

93. “And St. Francis added: "My dear and beloved Brother, the treasure of blessed poverty is so very precious and divine that we are not worthy to possess it in our vile bodies. For poverty is that heavenly virtue by which all earthy and transitory things are trodden under foot, and by which every obstacle is removed from the soul so that it may freely enter into union with the eternal Lord God. It is also the virtue which makes the soul, while still here on earth, converse with the angels in Heaven. It is she who accompanied Christ on the Cross, was buried with Christ in the Tomb, and with Christ was raised and ascended into Heaven, for even in this life she gives to souls who love her the ability to fly to Heaven, and she alone guards the armor of true humility and charity.” - St. Francis Of Assisi

94. “Poverty is like a crumb that sits at a table, and starves itself to death.” - Anthony Liccione

95. “His lines had been honed over centuries, passed down through generations, for poor people needed certain lines; the script was always the same, and they had no option but to beg for mercy.” - kiran desai

96. “Dare we care at all about current fashions if that means reducing our ability to help hungry neighbors? How many more luxuries should we buy for ourselves and our children when others are dying for lack of bread?” - Ron Sider

97. “...while God has done his part in creating a world capable of providing what we need, we have not done our part in the stewardship of it, in seeing that it gets to the end of the line, to the poorest and neediest--the children.” - Wess Stafford

98. “The Poverty Tour provided the opportunity to meet many people who had been living paycheck to paycheck even before the economic downturn. To so quickly slide from the great middle into the underworld of the poor validated our suspicions that perhaps these citizens never really were bona fide, middle class Americans. Indeed, some economists assert that the middle class evaporated decades ago.” - Cornel West

99. “Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.” - Alain De Botton

100. “In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. --Aristotle” - Cornel West

101. “Kuwa tajiri si kazi rahisi. Ukipata milioni ya kwanza utataka nyingine kulinda hiyo ya kwanza. Ukipata ya pili utataka mbili zingine kulinda hizo mbili za kwanza, n.k. Si kazi rahisi. Si kama unavyofikiria. Utajiri haujanipa furaha. Umenipa uhuru. Ndugu zangu ni maskini wa kutupwa. Ningependa kuishi kama maskini mwenye pesa nyingi.” - Enock Maregesi

102. “cross-national studies show that the U.S. poverty rate, which stands persistently above 12 percent, is not only the highest poverty rate of any advanced industrial nation, but is more than twice the average for that group.Pursuing the American Dream, 9, 276” - Cal Jillson

103. “Poverty is a mathematical proof of the fact that mankind is a big failure!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

104. “For a man who is in poverty, doomsday is already there!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

105. “I'd rather be poor to my bones than be rich with your money, that is like a trigger, ready to be pulled in my face.” - Nema Al-Araby

106. “Do you find yourself in a dry place today? Don’t look back toward the land of your bondage, or even to the place where God miraculously saved you from your enemies. Those seasons are over and he is now offering you a great opportunity. He is longing to reveal his sovereignty to you by providing for you in this most hot and dry place.” - Amy Layne Litzelman

107. “My honey child, them housing projects Cannot contain her multitudes A sunbeam, hard upon her Just a fly strugglin’ through her braid loops Watch me prove to ‘em I’m more than nothin’ But a ragamuffin with homesick eyes Yes, when it gets to be the same old thing Shorty you ought to come and see about me My love, she is a drummer Than industrial steel, her backbone tougher The eloping night and the honey moon that trails Just dirt ‘neath her finger nails I’ll be down on them crossroads ‘Til daybreak winks a bright eye And if it gets to be the same old thing Shorty you ought to come and see about me She’s heard all the right things And they did not persuade her She has no use for your words What she wants is your labor ‘Cause when gringos speak of minorities They tend to keep their voices low Ah, but when that gets to be the same old thing Shorty you ought to come and see about me” - Valentine Xavier

108. “So let us be clear about this up front: We hope to recruit you to join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women's power as economic catalysts. That is the process under way - not a drama of victimization but of empowerment, the kind that transforms bubbly teenage girls from brothel slaves into successful businesswomen.This is a story of transformation. It is change that is already taking place, and change that can accelerate if you'll just open your heart and join in.” - Nicholas D. Kristof

109. “The poor are not a problem but rather an opportunity to show unconditional love.” - Dillon Burroughs

110. “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.” - Maxine Hancock

111. “Compared to the rest of the world, it's like we're living in Disneyland.” - David Servant

112. “Hunger and necessity are poor teachers of morality. A society that cannot provide the basics of life does not get its laws obeyed.” - A.J. Quinnell

113. “Many overlook the fact that Jesus was homeless. He did not only teach the poor; He lived among them.” - Dillon Burroughs