Wealth And Poverty Quotes:

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

source: Twitter post from Jan 21, 2016

topic: Justice, Fundamentals, Charity, Hunger And Poverty, Hunger Poverty

The lack of money is the root of all evil.

- Mark Twain

topic: Funny, Sarcastic, Money, King James Bible, Material Things

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

source: Second Inaugural Address, 20 Jan. 1937

topic: Money, History, Presidential, Social Progress, Presidents Day

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

topic: Country, Liberty, Politics, Rulership, Wealth And Poverty

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

- Kin Hubbard

topic: Funny, Inspiring, Happiness, Spiritual Wealth, Money And Happiness

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

topic: Science, Men, Technology, Inaugural, Inaugural Address

...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

topic: Rights, Humanity, Age, Wealth And Poverty, Prowess

Wealth and poverty do not lie in a man's estate, but in men's souls.

- Antisthenes

topic: Happiness, Lying, Men, Wealth And Poverty

Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.

- Henry David Thoreau

source: Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.121, Graphic Arts Books

topic: Giving, Poverty, Wealth, Wealth And Poverty, True Wealth

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

topic: Thinking, Giving, World, Wealth And Poverty, World Poverty

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

- Henry David Thoreau

topic: Inspirational, Life, Wisdom, Inspirational Money, Wealth And Poverty

... a bad attitude, that the love of money is the root of all evil and the rich are evil and greedy and all that stuff. It’s basically socialism and communism.

- Robert Kiyosaki

source: "Parents still tell kids to save money. That's really obsolete". Interview with Nastassia Arendse, citizen.co.za. March 8, 2017.

topic: Inspirational, Bible, Money, Material Wealth, Inspirational Money

The two great tests of character are wealth and poverty.

- Charles A. Beard

topic: Character, Two, Tests, Test Of Character, Wealth And Poverty

Wealth and poverty; one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.

- Plato

source: Plato (2012). “The Republic and Other Works”, p.110, Anchor

topic: Luxury, Parent, Poverty, Wealth And Poverty

The villager, born humbly and bred hard, Content his wealth, and poverty his guard, In action simply just, in conscience clear, By guilt untainted, undisturb'd by fear, His means but scanty, and his wants but few, Labor his business, and his pleasure too, Enjoys more comforts in a single hour Than ages give the wretch condemn'd to power.

- Charles Churchill

source: Charles Churchill (1783). “The Poetical Works of C. Churchill: In Three Volumes. with the Life of the Author”, p.90

topic: Mean, Giving, Guilt, Wealth And Poverty

The current economic crisis...has numerous causes and sends a powerful message about the need for a profound revision of the model of global economic development. It's an acute symptom that is added to other more grave and already well-known ones, such as the continued imbalance between wealth and poverty, the scandal of hunger, the ecological emergency and the problem of unemployment, which has now become general. In this context a strategic re-launching of agriculture appears decisive.

- Pope Benedict XVI

topic: Powerful, Land, Agriculture, Wealth And Poverty

If one benefits tangibly from the exploitation of others who are weak, is one morally implicated in their predicament? Or are basic rights of human existence confined to the civilized societies that are wealthy enough to afford them? Our values are defined by what we will tolerate when it is done to others.

- William Greider

topic: Rights, Done, Benefits, Exploitation, Wealth And Poverty

The rule of law does not do away with the unequal distribution of wealth and power, but reinforces that inequality with the authority of law. It allocates wealth and poverty in such calculated and indirect ways as to leave the victim bewildered.

- Howard Zinn

topic: Law, Way, Poverty, Wealth And Poverty, Bewildered

The laws expressing the relations between energy and matter are, however, not solely of importance in pure science. They necessarily come first in order ... in the whole record of human experience, and they control, in the last resort, the rise or fall of political systems, the freedom or bondage of nations, the movements of commerce and industry, the origin of wealth and poverty, and the general physical welfare of the race.

- Frederick Soddy

topic: Fall, Race, Order, Wealth And Poverty

The choice of life is not between fame and fortune, nor wealth and poverty, but between good and evil.

- Boyd K. Packer

topic: Evil, Choices, Accountability, Wealth And Poverty

Death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful - and hence neither good nor bad.

- Marcus Aurelius

source: Marcus Aurelius (2002). “Meditations: A New Translation”, p.20, Modern Library

topic: Pain, Life And Death, Noble, Wealth And Poverty

All men's instincts, all their impulses in life, are efforts to increase their freedom. Wealth and poverty, health and disease, culture and ignorance, labor and leisure, repletion and hunger, virtue and vice, are all terms for greater or less degree of freedom.

- Leo Tolstoy

source: Leo Tolstoy (2012). “War and Peace”, p.1371, Modern Library

topic: Ignorance, Men, Effort, Wealth And Poverty

Wealth and poverty are seen for what they are. It begins to be seen that the poor are only they who feel poor, and poverty consists in feeling poor. The rich, as we reckon them, and among them the very rich, in a true scale would be found very indigent and ragged.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.98, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

topic: Feelings, Would Be, Poverty, Wealth And Poverty

The American mirror, said the voice, the sad American mirror of wealth and poverty and constant useless metamorphosis, the mirror that sails and whose sails are pain.

- Roberto Bolano

topic: Pain, Voice, Mirrors, Wealth And Poverty

Upon laying a weight in one of the scales, inscribed eternity, though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction, wealth, and poverty, which seemed very ponderous, they were not able to stir the opposite balance.

- Joseph Addison

topic: Opposites, Balance, Weight, Wealth And Poverty

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

source: "The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming America From The Right". Book by Paul Krugman, October 1, 2007.

topic: Believe, Law, Political, Wealth And Poverty

Economists are coming to acknowledge that measures of national wealth and poverty in terms strictly of average income tell you little that is significant of the health or viability of a society.

- Rowan Williams

topic: Average, Littles, Poverty, Wealth And Poverty

Man is about to be an automaton; he is identifiable only in the computer. As a person of worth and creativity, as a being with an infinite potential, he retreats and battles the forces that make him inhuman. The dissent we witness is a reaffirmation of faith in man; it is protest against living under rules and prejudices and attitudes that produce the extremes of wealth and poverty and that make us dedicated to the destruction of people through arms, bombs, and gases, and that prepare us to think alike and be submissive objects for the regime of the computer.

- William O. Douglas

source: "Points of Rebellion". Book by William O. Douglas, 1970.

topic: Attitude, Creativity, Men, Infinite Potential, Wealth And Poverty

Both poverty and wealth, therefore, have a bad effect on the quality of the work and the workman himself. Wealth and poverty, I answered. One produces luxury and idleness and a passion for novelty, the other meanness and bad workmanship and revolution into the bargain.

- Plato

topic: Passion, Luxury, Political, Workmanship, Workmen

It is this idea 'decency' should be attached to wealth -and 'indecency'' to poverty - that forms the core of one strand of skeptical complaint against the modern status-ideal. Why should failure to make money be taken as a sign of an unconditionally flawed human being rather than of a fiasco in one particular area if the far larger, more multifaceted, project of leading a good life? Why should both wealth and poverty be read as the predominant guides to an individual's morals ?

- Alain de Botton

topic: Good Life, Taken, Ideas, Wealth And Poverty, Strands

Let us look at wealth and poverty. The affluent society and the deprived society inter-are. The wealth of one society is made of the poverty of the other. "This is like this, because that is like that." Wealth is made of non-wealth elements, and poverty is made by non-poverty elements. [...] so we must be careful not to imprison ourselves in concepts. The truth is that everything contains everything else. We cannot just be, we can only inter-be. We are responsible fo everything that happens around us.

- Nhat Hanh

topic: Looks, Elements, Poverty, Wealth And Poverty