Be
a Hero for a Better World ... Every Act of Kindness Makes
a Difference!
END POVERTY
Globalization
has improved the lives of people throughout the world,
but it has also widened the gap between rich and poor...Working
to end poverty will make the world safer.
-- Robert
Alan Silverstein
*
"Wars
against nations are fought to change maps; wars against
poverty are fought to map change."
-- Muhammad
Ali
"The
poverty and long suffering of farmers and indigenous
peoples that I have seen has planted in me the principle
that justice must be fought for them."
-- Dewi
Rana Amir
*
"Poverty
devastates families, communities and nations. It causes
instability and political unrest and fuels conflict."
-- Kofi
Annan
Whether
our task is fighting poverty, stemming the spread of disease
or saving innocent lives from mass murder, we have seen
that we cannot succeed without the leadership of the strong
and the engagement of all.
-- Kofi
Annan
"Let
us work in partnerships between rich and poor to improve
the opportunities of all human beings to build better
lives."
-- Kofi
Annan
"On
this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty,
let us recognize that extreme poverty anywhere is a threat
to human security everywhere. Let us recall that poverty
is a denial of human rights. For the first time in history,
in this age of unprecedented wealth and technical prowess,
we have the power to save humanity from this shameful
scourge. Let us summon the will to do it."
-- Kofi
Annan
*
"Poverty
is the parent of revolution and crime."
-- Aristotle
(384-322 BC)
*
Anyone
who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely
expensive it is to be poor.
-- James
A. Baldwin
When
you have a spiritual foundation, you look at poverty
differently then.
-- Dennis
Banks
*
We,
who have so much, must do more to help those in need.
And most of all, we must live simply, so that others
may simply live.
-- Ed
Begley, Jr.
Poverty
is everyone's problem. It cuts across any line you can
name: age, race, social, geographic or religious. Whether
you are black or white; rich, middle-class or poor, we
are ALL touched by poverty.
-- Kathleen Blanco
I
know that government doesn't have the all solutions that
real solutions do not come from the top down. Instead,
the ways to end poverty come from all of us. We are part
of the solution.
-- Governor Kathleen Blanco
Think
about it: Every educated person is not rich, but almost
every education person has a job and a way out of poverty.
So education is a fundamental solution to poverty.
-- Governor Kathleen Blanco
This
is not about charity, it's about justice... The
war against terror is bound up in the war against
poverty - I didn't say that, Colin Powell said that
. . .
-- Bono
*
In
these disturbing and distressing times, surely it's
cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential
enemies than it is to defend yourself against them..Justice
is the surest way to get peace.
-- Bono
*
Do
we have the will to make poverty history?
-- Bono
On
trade, our hypocrisy is at its most appalling. Trade reform
isn't about charity, it's about justice, and this campaign,
Trade Justice is an unstoppable idea.
-- Bono
It
wouldn't cost too much to change the rules of trade so
that poor countries can work their way out of poverty.
But the world's leaders won't act unless they hear enough
people telling them. And every day they fail to act, thousands
of people die because they can't afford the basics of
survival.
-- Bono
Everywhere
I go, I see very much the same thing. I see the same compassion
for people who live half a world away. I see the same
concern about events beyond these borders. And, increasingly,
I see the same conviction that we can and we must join
together to stop the scourge of AIDS and poverty.
-- Bono
*
The
combined efforts of millions of concerned citizens
could do wonders to help the impoverished. The American
people are ready for action!
-- Barbara
Boxer
*
Peace
is something more than the absence of war, although
some nations would be thankful for that alone today.
A durable and equitable peace system requires equal
development opportunities for all nations.
-- Willy
Brandt
*
Peace
is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting.
Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only
suffering in both peace and war, must be translated
into bread or rice, shelter, health, and education,
as well as freedom and human dignity - a steadily
better life. If peace is to be secure, long-suffering
and long-starved, forgotten peoples of the world,
the underprivileged and the undernourished, must begin
to realize without delay the promise of a new day
and a new life.
-- Ralph
J. Bunche
*
When
you give food to the poor, they call you a saint.
When you ask why the poor have no food, they call
you a communist.
-- Archbishop
Helder Camara
In
a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed
of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to
be ashamed of.
-- Confucius
There
was never a war on poverty. Maybe there was a skirmish
on poverty.
-- Andrew Cuomo
*
"Peace
can only last where human rights are respected,
where the people are fed, and where individuals
and nations are free." -- 14th
Dalai Lama
The
problems we face today, violent conflicts, destruction
of nature, poverty, hunger and so on, are human-created
problems which can be resolved through human effort,
understanding and the development of a sense of
brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate
a universal responsibility for one another and the
planet we share. --
14th
Dalai Lama
Poverty
feeds into the clean-water crisis, which contributes
to hunger, and so on. There’s undeniable interconnectivity
among these issues. Just one of these problems can
be deadly on its own, but in the most disadvantaged
areas there is a perfect storm of problems. And
it takes its greatest toll on children.
-- Matt
Damon
*
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.
-- Frederick
Douglass
*
To
be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in
a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.
-- W.
E. B. DuBois
*
Just
because a child's parents are poor or uneducated
is no reason to deprive the child of basic human
rights to health care, education and proper nutrition.
-- Marian
Wright Edelman
*
To
live in poverty is to live with constant uncertainty,
to accept galling indignities, and to expect harassment
by the police, welfare officials and employers, as
well as by others who are poor and desperate.
-- Barbara
Ehrenreich
*
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.
-- Dwight
D. Eisenhower
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.
-- Pope
Francis
A
pacifism which can see the cruelties only of occasional
military warfare and is blind to the continuous
cruelties of our social system is worthless.
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
*
There's
enough on this planet for everyone's needs but not
for everyone's greed.
~ Mohandas
Gandhi
*
There's
enough on this planet for everyone's needs but not
for everyone's greed.
~ Mohandas
Gandhi
*
We’re
looking at the singular condition of poverty. All
the other individual problems spring from that condition...
doesn’t matter if it’s death, aid, trade, AIDS, famine,
instability, governance, corruption or war. All of
that is poverty. Our problem is that everybody tries
to heal each of the individual aspects of poverty,
not poverty itself.
-- Bob
Geldof
But
the poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact
of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral,
and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product
of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible.
They are marginalized by our social and cultural world.
They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed
of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity.
Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous
relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different
social order.
-- Gustavo Gutierrez
Poverty
is a scourge that must be overcome, and this can only
be accomplished through concerted international efforts
involving effective partnerships between developed and
developing countries and between government, the private
sector and civil society.
-- Dr. HAN Seung-soo, Former President of the UN General
Assembly
We
must work to ensure the human dignity that comes with
a life free from hunger and poverty."
-- Julian R. Hunte Former President of the UN General
Assembly
*
Experience
declares that man is the only animal which devours
his own kind, for I can think of no milder term
to apply to the general prey of the rich on the
poor.
-- Thomas
Jefferson
*
"Having
visited Oxfam-funded school programs in rural
communities has made me realise how vital education
is to developing countries in bringing people
out of poverty and giving them a sense of dignity,
self-worth and confidence."
-- Scarlett
Johansson
They
have stolen the public lands. They have grasped all
to themselves, and by their unprincipled greed brought
a crisis of unparalleled distress on forty millions
of people, who have natural resources to feed, clothe
and shelter the whole human race.
-- Denis Kearney
No
one who works for a living should live in poverty.
-- Senator Edward Kennedy
*
The
world is very different now. For man holds in
his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms
of human poverty, and all forms of human life.
-- John
F. Kennedy
*
I
believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty
is evil.
-- Robert
F. Kennedy
"Poverty
is like punishment for a crime you didn't commit."
-- Eli Khamarov
True
compassion is more than flinging a coin at a
beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which
produces beggars needs restructuring.
-- Martin
Luther King Jr
*
We
have moved into an era where we are called upon
to raise certain basic questions about the whole
society. We are still called upon to give aid
to the beggar who finds himself in misery and
agony on life's highway. But one day, we must
ask the question of whether an edifice which
produces beggars must not be restructured and
refurbished. --
Martin
Luther King, Jr
"We
have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of
power, indescribably complicated problems to solve.
But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb
to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons
we have ourselves created, it is as possible and as
urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations
as it is to put an end to poverty and racial injustice."
-- Martin
Luther King Jr (1929-1968)
It
is a tragic mix-up when the United States spends 500,000
for every enemy soldier killed, and only 53 annually
on the victims of poverty." -- Martin
Luther King, Jr
*
"Peace
does not fare well where poverty and deprivation
reign. It does not flourish where there is ignorance
and a lack of education and information. Repression,
injustice and exploitation are inimical with peace.
Peace is gravely threatened by inter-group fear
and envy and by the unleashing of unrealistic expectations.
Racial, class and religious intolerance and prejudice
are its mortal enemies."
-- Frederik
W. de Klerk
“I
believe in a relatively equal society, supported by
institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty.
I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule
of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it."
-- Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize-winning economist)
*
Poverty
is a weapon of mass destruction. Homelessness
is a weapon of mass destruction. Unemployment
is a weapon of mass destruction.
-- Dennis
Kucinich
*
"Witnessing
the extreme poverty in remote parts of Affrica
can make you feel sad and powerless until you
realize how little it takes to change these people's
lives fundamentally in sustainable ways."
-- John
Legend
*
Imagine
no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
-- John
Lennon
*
"Such
is the scale and depth of poverty in many parts
of the world that it won't be ended overnight. That
is why if, like me, you want to see an end to poverty,
you need to be in it for the long haul." --
Annie
Lennox
*
Overcoming
poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an
act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental
human right, the right to dignity and a decent
life . . .
--
Nelson
Mandela
In
this new century, many of the world's poorest
countries remain imprisoned, enslaved and in chains.
They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It
is time to set them free. Like slavery and apartheid,
poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it
can be overcome and eradicated by the actions
of human beings.
-- Nelson
Mandela
"Trade
justice for the developing world and for this generation
is a truly significant way for the developed countries
to show commitment to bringing about an end to global
poverty."
-- Nelson
Mandela
Massive
poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges
of our times -- times in which the world boasts breathtaking
advances in science, technology, industry and wealth
accumulation -- that they have to rank alongside slavery
and apartheid as social evils.
-- Nelson
Mandela
"I
have tremendous confidence in the capacity of the
poor to transform not only their own lives but also
to build a just, humane, and democratic society."
-- Ruth
Manorama
*
Wars
are bred by poverty and oppression. Continued peace
is possible only in a relatively free and prosperous
world.
-- George
C. Marshall
"Our
policy is directed not against any country or doctrine
but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos.
Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy
in the world so as to permit the emergence of political
and social conditions in which free institutions
can exist."
-- George
C. Marshall (1880-1959)
We
live in the richest country in the world. There's plenty
to spare and for no man, woman, or child to be in want.
And in addition to this our country was founded on what
should have been a great , true principle -- the freedom,
equality, and rights of each individual. Huh! And what
has come of this start? There are corporations worth billions
of dollars--and hundreds of thousands of people who don't
get to eat.
-- Carson McCullers
*
Pay
attention to the hungry, both in this country and
around the world. Pay attention to the poor. Pay attention
to our responsibilities for world peace. We are our
brother’s keeper...
-- George
McGovern
*
The
greatest step forward in human evolution was made
when society began to help the weak and the poor,
instead of oppressing and despising them.
– Maria
Montessori
*
"Of
course I am frustrated with regard to extreme poverty,
to violence that never seems to cease. Greed is the
key. It’s easy to sit in relative luxury and peace
and pontificate on the subject of the Third World
debts. Not many of us are willing to give up everything
we have. We can however give some, and millions of
people do, governments do, but there is so much more
to be done."
-- Sir
Roger Moore
*
"If
poverty is a disease that infects the entire community
in the form of unemployment and violence, failing
schools and broken homes, then we can't just treat
those symptoms in isolation . We have to heal
that entire community."
-- Barack
Obama
The
international trading system was devised by the rich
to suit their needs; it ignores those of the poor.'
-- Pope Paul VI
*
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.
-- Brad
Pitt
An
imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most
fatal ailment of all republics.
-- Plutarch
*
The
good news is we have the technology and the tools
to alleviate poverty on a global scale. All that
is standing in our way is education and will.
-- Natalie
Portman
*
Small
loans can transform lives, especially the lives
of women and children. The poor can become empowered
instead of disenfranchised. Homes can be built,
jobs can be created, businesses can be launched,
and individuals can feel a sense of worth again.
-- Natalie
Portman
He
who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who
gives gifts to the rich--both come to poverty.
-- Proverbs 22:16
*
How
unthinkable that, in a country of such bursting plenty,
so many people are facing ongoing hunger and poverty.
If we are truly each other's keepers, let's support
school lunches, food stamps, neighborhood garden projects,
and so many other wonderful programs working to put
an end to this cruel and needless blight once and
for all.
-- Bonnie
Raitt
*
The
test of our progress is not whether we add more
to the abundance of those who have enough; it is
whether we provide enough for those who have too
little."
-- Franklin
Delano Roosevelt
*
“It’s
quite possible to arrive in the year 2030 where
people are no longer dying of poverty. We could
actually help lead a global end-not a reduction,
but an end-to absolute poverty…I have always found
that a committed, powerful group of leaders, can
make a huge difference.”
-- Jeffrey
Sachs
"Extreme
poverty is the best breeding ground on earth for
disease, political instability, and terrorism."
-- Jeffrey
Sachs
"The
key to ending extreme poverty is to enable the poorest
of the poor to get their foot on the ladder of development.
The ladder of development hovers overhead, and the poorest
of the poor are stuck beneath it. They lack the minimum
amount of capital necessary to get a foothold, and therefore
need a boost up to the first rung. "
-- Jeffrey
Sachs
"Every
morning our newspapers could read, 'More than 20,000 people
perished yesterday of extreme poverty.' How? The poor
die in hospital wards that lack drugs, in villages that
lack antimalarial bed nets, in houses that lack safe drinking
water. They die namelessly, without public comment. Sadly,
sad stories rarely get written."
-- Jeffrey
Sachs
All
of the incessant debate about development assistance,
and whether the rich are doing enough to help the poor,
actually concerns less than 1% of rich world income. The
effort required of the rich is indeed so slight that to
do less is to announce brazenly to a large part of the
world: 'You count for nothing.' We should not be surprised,
then, if in later years the rich reap the whirlwind of
that heartless response.
-- Jeffrey
Sachs
Our interconnectedness
on the planet is the dominating truth of the 21st century.
One stark result is that the world's poor live, and especially
die, with the awareness that the United States is doing
little to mobilise the weapons of mass salvation that could
offer them survival, dignity and eventually the escape from
poverty. -- Jeffrey
Sachs
The
rich do not have to invest enough in the poorest countries
to make them rich; they need to invest enough so that
these countries can get their foot on the economic ladder
. . . Economic development works. It can be successful.
It tends to build on itself. But it must get started.
-- Jeffrey
Sachs
The
essence of Africa's crisis is fundamentally its extreme
poverty and therefore its inability to mobilize out of
its own resources even the barest of minimum resources
to address any of the public health crises that Africa
faces.
-- Jeffrey
Sachs
"We
are living in the richest country in the history
of the world, yet we have the highest rate of childhood
poverty of almost any major] country and millions
of people are struggling to put food on the table.
It is my absolute conviction that everyone in this
country deserves a minimum standard of living and
we've got to go forward in the fight to make that
happen."
~ Sen.
Bernie Sanders
"The
United States has more people living in poverty
than at almost any time in the modern history of
our country. I believe that in a democratic, civilized
society none of our people should be hungry or living
in desperation. We need to expand Social Security,
not cut it. We need to increase funding for nutrition
programs, not cut them." ~ Sen.
Bernie Sanders
A
job should lift workers out of poverty, not keep
them in it."
~ Sen.
Bernie Sanders
"When
the rich make war, it's the poor that die."
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
*
I
attempted to see famines as broad "economic" problems
(concentrating on how people can buy food, or otherwise
get entitled to it), rather than in terms of the grossly
undifferentiated picture of aggregate food supply
for the economy as a whole. -- Amartya
Sen
*
"We
know that many boys and girls leave school because
of poverty, because they have to work. However,
there are an important number of children who abandon
their studies because of the abuses they're subject
to by teachers and their own parents." -- Shakira
*
"The
greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty."
-- George
Bernard Shaw
Security,
the chief pretense of civilization, cannot exist
where the worst of dangers, the danger of poverty,
hangs over everyone's head
-- George
Bernard Shaw
The
first world is going to have to account for this
sort of horrible poverty in our midst. We have to,
first of all, become aware of it. We have to take
responsibility for it. And then we have to do something
about it for our own freedom, for our own salvation,
for our own humanity.
-- 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. We have our own Third World here. And we
have to first become aware of that and how to help
and solve that.
-- Martin
Sheen
Once
you experience Third World poverty, you're really changed
forever, if you're at all open to it, because we're all
united in our common humanity. And we are so made as to
feel something for people who are in pain. It's not possible
to be human and to be unaffected by what you see in the
third world.
-- Martin
Sheen
*
Poverty
and lack of knowledge must be challenged.
-- Russell
Simmons
"It's
outrageous to line your pockets off the misery
of the poor;
It's outrageous, the crimes some human beings
must endure..."
-- Paul
Simon
Somewhere
near you, somebody right now is trying to help the indigent
and poor - providing food, shelter, clothing or simple
kindness.
-- Tony Snow
*
Most
of the poverty and misery in the world is due to
bad government, lack of democracy, weak states,
internal strife, and so on.
-- George
Soros
*
I
am weary seeing our laboring classes so wretchedly
housed, fed, and clothed, while thousands of dollars
are wasted every year over unsightly statues.
If these great man must have outdoor memorials,
let them be in the form of handsome blocks of
buildings for the poor
--
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Unions
have been the best anti-poverty program that actually
worked and did not cost the government a dime. But as
unions grow smaller- not stronger- our ability to act
as an economic mechanism to distribute the gains of our
work and raise all workers' wages and benefits up is disappearing.
-- Andy Stern, SEIU President
*
It
is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that
you may live as you wish.
-- Mother
Teresa
*A
society is judged by the way it cares for its most
vulnerable citizens. As an American, I am ashamed
that we have turned out backs on millions of our
children. I want to do my part to rectify this terrible
situation.
-- Marlo
Thomas
Peace
will never be entirely secure until men everywhere have
learned to conquer poverty without sacrificing liberty
or security.
-- Norman Thomas
*
There's
an awful lot of misunderstanding here about what
being poor actually means. I don't think people
understand that being poor means you have to work
from dawn until dusk just to survive through the
day. I think there's some notion that poor people
lie about all day not doing anything. It is remarkable
how many misconceptions there are here about life
in the developing world and I think that that knowledge
gap has done a lot to contribute to the imbalance
quite frankly.
-- Emma
Thompson
"Poverty
is not something people impose on themselves for want
of effort and community organisation. It is constructed
by divisive and discriminatory laws, inflexible organisations,
acquisitive ideologies of wealth, a deeply rooted class
system and policies which serve privilege in the short
term and destroy society in the long term."
-- Peter Townshend
"We
must live more simply so that the poor may simply live."
-- F.E. Trainer
Let's
share our abundance and make our country stronger.
-- John Travolta
*
Because
there is global insecurity, nations are engaged
in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars
wastefully on instruments of destruction, when millions
are starving. And yet, just a fraction of what is
extended so obscenely on defense budgets would make
a real difference in enabling God's children to
fill their stomachs, be educated, and be given the
chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.
-- Desmond
Tutu
*...just
a fraction of what is extended so obscenely on defense
budgets would make a real difference in enabling God's
children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and be
given the chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.
-- Desmond
Tutu
"The
arms race can kill, though the weapons themselves may
never be used...by their cost alone, armaments kill the
poor by causing them to starve."
-- Vatican statement to the U.N., 1976
Poverty
is multidimensional. It extends beyond money incomes
to education, health care, political participation
and advancement of one's own culture and social
organisation.
-- Atal
Bihari Vajpayee
"It
would be nice if the poor were to get even half of the
money that is spent in studying them."
-- Bill Vaughan
*
There's
a moral convergence happening among religious leaders
on the issue of poverty"
-- Rev.
Jim Wallis
I've
been supportive of the idea of government partnership
with faith-based organizations and other non-profit
organizations to do the work of fighting poverty.
We've done it for years, overseas and here. I think
it needs to be done.
-- Rev.
Jim Wallis
"The
Bible insists that the best test of a nation's righteousness
is how it treats the poorest and most vulnerable
in its midst."
-- Rev.
Jim Wallis
The
freest government cannot long endure when the tendency
of the law is to create a rapid accumulation of property
in the hands of a few, and to render the masses poor and
dependent.
-- Daniel Webster
*
What
a devil art thou, Poverty! How many desires - how
many aspirations after goodness and truth - how
many noble thoughts, loving wishes toward our fellows,
beautiful imaginings thou hast crushed under thy
heel, without remorse or pause!
-- Walt
Whitman
The
issue of poverty is not a statistical issue. It is a human
issue.
-- James Wolfensohn
What
we need to do is increase the totality of money that is
given to the poorest areas and then we can do more on
prevention but we have crucial needs at the moment just
to get people out of poverty and to get the eight hundred
million people that go to bed at night hungry, give them
some food and some hope.
-- James Wolfensohn
I
was deeply concerned then, and have become more concerned
since, that unless we can deal with the questions of development
and the questions of poverty, there's no way that we're
going to have a peaceful world for our children.
-- James Wolfensohn
Too
many of the conflicts which are caused today are caused
by the problems that emerge from people who are in poverty.
-- James Wolfensohn
The
first thing that you need to deal with is the issue of
equity and poverty.
-- James Wolfensohn
*
It
is not great wealth in a few individuals that proves
a country is prosperous, but great general wealth
evenly distributed among the people. . .
-- Victoria
Woodhull
My
vision for the future? ... a world completely free
from poverty.
-- Muhammad
Yunus
*
"Some
people think that poor people are lazy. Actually,
it takes a lot of work to survive when you are dirt-poor."
-- Muhammad
Yunus
My
vision for the future? Two things: to make credit a human
right so that each individual human being will have the
opportunity to take loans and implement his or her ideas
so that self-exploration becomes possible. And second:
that it will lead to a world where nobody has to suffer
from poverty - a world completely free from poverty.
-- Muhammad
Yunus
This
is not charity. This is business: business with a social
objective, which is to help people get out of poverty.
-- Muhammad
Yunus
