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Home: Topics: Human Society Quotes: Poverty Quotes

Poverty Quotes

Poverty is not restricted to just lack of food but also extends to other basic needs that he/she is deprived of such as food, clothing, shelter, health care, education and hygienic water. A person living in poverty is the one who is incapable of providing these basic necessities for himself and his family. The main reasons for poverty are mainly insufficient funds, corrupt officials and instable government that lead to such poor quality of life. In many countries poverty is still a major issue that needs to be dealt with. Read through these empathic poverty quotations and sayings to understand the hardships of a poverty driven life.

Jeff Bridges

Poverty is a very complicated issue, but feeding a child isn't.

Jeff Bridges
James Baldwin

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

James Baldwin
Martin Sheen

We think of violence as being conflict and fighting and wars and so forth, but the most ongoing horrific measure of violence is in the horrible poverty of the Third World... and the poverty in the United States as well.

Violence World Fighting
Martin Sheen

Some foreigners with full bellies and nothing better to do engage in finger-pointing at us. First, China does not export revolution; second, it does not export famine and poverty; and third, it does not mess around with you. So what else is there to say?

Revolution
Xi Jinping
Kin Hubbard

It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.

Wealth Happiness
Kin Hubbard
Frederick Douglass

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

Society Justice
Frederick Douglass

I'm a real person, and I'm angry. I'm trying to use this celebrity thing to get people some help. AIDS, poverty, racism - I want to be one of the hands that helps stop all that. I'll put it on my shoulders. I'll charge it to my account.

People
Jamie Foxx
Adam Smith

The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.

Tragedy
Adam Smith
Jay-Z

The burden of poverty isn't just that you don't always have the things you need, it's the feeling of being embarrassed every day of your life, and you'd do anything to lift that burden.

Life
Jay-Z
Marvin Olasky

Most organizations should be pro-active, but philanthropists concerned with poverty should deliberately be reactive, learning from the efforts of ordinary folks who tired of looking the other way as their communities fell apart.

Learning
Marvin Olasky

My mom grew up in poverty in Oklahoma - like Dust Bowl, nine people in one room kind of place - and the way she got out of poverty was through education. My dad grew up without a dad, with very little and he also made his way out through education.

People Education
Jennifer Garner
Roger Moore

Of course I am frustrated with regard to extreme poverty, to violence that never seems to cease.

Violence
Roger Moore
Coco Chanel

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.

People Luxury
Coco Chanel
Novak Djokovic

Those born into poverty or on the margins of society require our extra support to realize their dreams.

Society Support Dreams
Novak Djokovic
Mother Teresa

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

Mother Teresa
Jim Carrey

Life is an ordeal, albeit an exciting one, but I wouldn't trade it for the good old days of poverty and obscurity.

Good Life
Jim Carrey

We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don't want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.

People Work
Barack Obama
Lyndon B. Johnson

Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.

Learning
Lyndon B. Johnson

If we want to reduce poverty and misery, if we want to give to every deserving individual what is needed for a safe existence of an intelligent being, we want to provide more machinery, more power. Power is our mainstay, the primary source of our many-sided energies.

Power
Nikola Tesla
Mother Teresa

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.

Feelings Being Alone
Mother Teresa
Woody Allen

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

Money
Woody Allen
Nelson Mandela

We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination.

People Suffering Gender
Nelson Mandela
Robert Burns

I foresee that poverty and obscurity probably await me, and I am in some measure prepared and daily preparing to meet them.

Robert Burns
Pranab Mukherjee

Trickle-down theories do not address the legitimate aspirations of the poor. We must lift those at the bottom so that poverty is erased from the dictionary of modern India.

Pranab Mukherjee
Quentin Crisp

The poverty from which I have suffered could be diagnosed as 'Soho' poverty. It comes from having the airs and graces of a genius and no talent.

Genius Talent
Quentin Crisp
Lyndon B. Johnson

This administration here and now declares unconditional war on poverty.

Wars
Lyndon B. Johnson
Mother Teresa

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

Nothing
Mother Teresa
Barack Obama

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Life
Barack Obama
Robert Downey Jr.

If you're raised with a poverty mentality, nothing is going to change it. I do know some really stingy billionaires. I come from such a generation of hand-to-mouthers.

Change
Robert Downey Jr.
Indira Gandhi

We do not wish to impoverish the environment any further, and yet we cannot for a moment forget the grim poverty of large numbers of people. Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters?

People Wish
Indira Gandhi
Willie Nelson

I think most art comes out of poverty and hard times.

Art
Willie Nelson
Brad Pitt

By the time this concert ends this evening, 30,000 Africans will have died because of extreme poverty. By this time tomorrow evening, another 30,000. This does not make sense.

Time
Brad Pitt
Confucius

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

Wealth Country
Confucius

I think one of the biggest mistakes that America has made - and maybe the world because this is, sort of, the core of communism and socialism - is that you can have perfect solutions to social problems like poverty, like crime. You're not going to eliminate all crime. Maybe you'll never eliminate all poverty.

World
Rudy Giuliani

There are large numbers of people in India below the poverty line; there are large numbers of people who lead a meager existence. They want to find a little escape from the hardships of life and come and watch something colorful and exciting and musical. Indian cinema provides that.

Life People
Amitabh Bachchan
Robert Kennedy

I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.

Wickedness
Robert Kennedy
Henry Ford

Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.

Penalty / Chastisement Crime
Henry Ford
Kin Hubbard

It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.

Happiness Wealth
Kin Hubbard

Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It meets a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts that is something on which to pride yourself but poverty itself is romanticized by fools.

Fear
J. K. Rowling
Jim Carrey

My family kinda hit the skids. We were experiencing poverty at that point. We all got a job, where the whole family had to work as security guards and janitors. And I just got angry.

Family Work
Jim Carrey
Priyanka Chopra

I can't eradicate poverty, but at least for the people around me, I can help make sure no child is denied a dream.

People Dreams
Priyanka Chopra
Groucho Marx

I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.

Nothing State
Groucho Marx
Washington Irving

It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man - the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse - the keeping up of a hollow show that must soon come to an end.

Struggles Mind
Washington Irving
Muhammad Ali

Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.

Change
Muhammad Ali
Indira Gandhi

There are grave misgivings that the discussion on ecology may be designed to distract attention from the problems of war and poverty.

Problems Wars Attention
Indira Gandhi
Anatole France

I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of the gifts useful to life.

Value Life
Anatole France
Anais Nin

If all of us acted in unison as I act individually there would be no wars and no poverty. I have made myself personally responsible for the fate of every human being who has come my way.

Fate
Anais Nin
Zora Neale Hurston

There is something about poverty that smells like death.

Death
Zora Neale Hurston
Bernie Sanders

At the current $5.15 an hour, the federal minimum wage has become a poverty wage. A full-time worker with one child lives below the official poverty line.

Bernie Sanders
Indira Gandhi

On the one hand, the rich look askance at our continuing poverty - on the other, they warn us against their own methods.

Indira Gandhi
Marcus Aurelius

Poverty is the mother of crime.

Crime
Marcus Aurelius

If we as a nation are to break the cycle of poverty, crime and the growing underclass of young people ill equipped to be productive citizens, we need to not only implement effective programs to prevent teen pregnancy, but we must also help those who have already given birth so that they become effective, nurturing, bonding parents.

Teenagers People Nation
Jane Fonda
Robert Kennedy

We develop the kind of citizens we deserve. If a large number of our children grow up into frustration and poverty, we must expect to pay the price.

Aggravation Children
Robert Kennedy
Dan Bongino

Ironically, socialist countries do tend to have immediate short term decreases in poverty before collapsing.

Short
Dan Bongino
Khalil Gibran

Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.

Love Equality
Khalil Gibran
Ilaiyaraaja

Many great composers have died in poverty. I have not faced hardships, like having to struggle for food, thanks to reasonable producers.

Greatness Struggles Food
Ilaiyaraaja
Bernie Sanders

Before Social Security existed, about half of America's senior citizens lived in poverty.

Security
Bernie Sanders
Mae West

Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache.

Love Things
Mae West
Simone Weil

If we are suffering illness, poverty, or misfortune, we think we shall be satisfied on the day it ceases. But there too, we know it is false; so soon as one has got used to not suffering one wants something else.

Suffering
Simone Weil
Hugh Jackman

My dad's main client was the World Bank, and he spent most of his time traveling to Third World countries. His particular interest lay in the eradication of poverty through development and business.

Business Time World
Hugh Jackman
Albert Camus

I grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.

Sea
Albert Camus
Narendra Modi

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

Life Childhood
Narendra Modi
Mahatma Gandhi

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

Violence
Mahatma Gandhi
Alicia Keys

We have the potential to help people out of poverty, out of disease, out of slavery and out of conflict. Too often, we turn the other way because we think there's nothing we can do.

Nothing People
Alicia Keys
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Almost half of the population of the world lives in rural regions and mostly in a state of poverty. Such inequalities in human development have been one of the primary reasons for unrest and, in some parts of the world, even violence.

Violence World
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Camille Paglia

I'm very pro-American - my entire family escaped poverty in Italy because they rightly believed in the American dream.

Family Dreams
Camille Paglia

I started my own Pies Descalzos/Barefoot Foundation when I was 18. We provide education to vulnerable children in Colombia and other developing countries. I am an avid believer that education - and especially early childhood development - is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty.

Childhood Education
Shakira
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Horace

Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.

Horace
Ivanka Trump

You can be born into privilege, or you can not be born into privilege. You can be born into the opposite extreme and into poverty. I think from there on, though, you really do have to make your luck.

Good Fortune
Ivanka Trump
Sonia Sotomayor

An alcoholic father, poverty, my own juvenile diabetes, the limited English my parents spoke - although my mother has become completely bilingual since. All these things intrude on what most people think of as happiness.

People Happiness Parents
Sonia Sotomayor
Robert Redford

I remember my dad came from Ireland and Scotland, and so he carried with him the fear of poverty. So when I wanted to break loose, it kind of made him very nervous.

Fear
Robert Redford
Bernie Sanders

Hillary Clinton understands that if someone in America this country works 40 hours a week, that person should not be living in poverty. She understands that we must raise the minimum wage to a living wage.

Country
Bernie Sanders
Lyndon B. Johnson

When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn't know it had a name.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Andrew Cuomo

There was never a war on poverty. Maybe there was a skirmish on poverty.

Wars
Andrew Cuomo
Narendra Modi

I come from a poor family, I have seen poverty. The poor need respect, and it begins with cleanliness.

Family Respect
Narendra Modi
Bill Gates

I have seen firsthand that agricultural science has enormous potential to increase the yields of small farmers and lift them out of hunger and poverty.

Science
Bill Gates
Sophia Bush

I fight for the environment because we only have one planet, but I see how the environment affects poverty and how the environment affects women around the world.

Women World
Sophia Bush
Gavin Newsom

Are we going to solve the issue of poverty? Absolutely not. Are we going to have an impact? I'm committed to it, and if we don't, I'll have no regrets because we're going to try everything we can.

Gavin Newsom
Robert Kennedy

Ultimately, Communism must be defeated by progressive political programs which wipe out the poverty, misery, and discontent on which it thrives.

Communism
Robert Kennedy
Henry David Thoreau

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Life Universe
Henry David Thoreau

Are we interested in treating the symptoms of poverty and economic stagnation through income redistribution and class warfare, or do we want to go at the root causes of poverty and economic stagnation by promoting pro-growth policies that promote prosperity?

Paul Ryan
Robert Kennedy

In the final analysis, poverty is a condition of helplessness - of inability to cope with the conditions of existence in our complex society.

Society
Robert Kennedy
Bill Gates

The belief that the world is getting worse, that we can't solve extreme poverty and disease, isn't just mistaken. It is harmful.

World Disease
Bill Gates

The burden of poverty isn't just that you don't always have the things you need: it's the feeling of being embarrassed every day of your life, and you'd do anything to lift that burden. As kids, we didn't complain about being poor; we talked about how rich we were going to be and made moves to get the lifestyle we aspired to by any means we could.

Life
Jay-Z
Malala Yousafzai

I want poverty to end in tomorrow's Pakistan. I want every girl in Pakistan to go to school.

Girl
Malala Yousafzai
Nelson Mandela

There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate who have not been able to conquer poverty.

People
Nelson Mandela
Bill Gates

Helping convene global stakeholders to establish a set of measurable, actionable and consensus-built goals focused on extreme poverty is invaluable.

Goals
Bill Gates
Malala Yousafzai

Many girls do not go to school because of poverty.

School
Malala Yousafzai
Tyra Banks

I have a poverty demon. I'll ask my accountant if I can afford something, and he'll say, 'What are you talking about?'

Tyra Banks
Khalil Gibran

Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.

Greatness Face
Khalil Gibran
Michel de Montaigne

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.

Soul
Michel de Montaigne
Dustin Poirier

The side of town, the side of Louisiana that I grew up on, there's a lot of poverty.

Dustin Poirier
Pope Francis

These days there is a lot of poverty in the world, and that's a scandal when we have so many riches and resources to give to everyone. We all have to think about how we can become a little poorer.

World
Pope Francis

One of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That's the American ideal. Poor people don't like talking about poverty because even though they might live in the projects surrounded by other poor people and have, like, ten dollars in the bank they don't like to think of themselves as poor.

People Country
Jay-Z

We have a presidential nominee in Hillary Clinton who knows that, in a time of stunningly wide disparities of wealth in our nation, America's greatness must not be measured by how many millionaires and billionaires we have, but by how few people we have living in poverty.

People Time
Cory Booker
Stephen Hawking

Science can lift people out of poverty and cure disease. That, in turn, will reduce civil unrest.

People Science
Stephen Hawking
H. L. Mencken

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

Crime
H. L. Mencken
Benjamin Franklin

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

Good
Benjamin Franklin
Aristotle

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.

Life
Aristotle