Homeless Quotes

• 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

  Motivational, Wise, Peace

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• There is a lot that happens around the world we cannot control. We cannot stop earthquakes, we cannot prevent droughts, and we cannot prevent all conflict, but when we know where the hungry, the homeless and the sick exist, then we can help.

  Jan Schakowsky

  Earthquakes, Sick, Around The World

  92 Copy quote

• Freedom is meaningless if people cannot put food in their stomachs, if they can have no shelter, if illiteracy and disease continue to dog them.

  Nelson Mandela

  Dog, People, Shelter

  Nelson Mandela (2011). “Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations”, p.159, Pan Macmillan

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• Before you ignore another homeless person on the street, just remember that that could be someone's father or someone's mother and they have a story.

  Syesha Mercado

  Mother, Father, Stories

  "American Idol’s Syesha Mercado: On Honesty, Acceptance, and Being Present". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• Hungry not only for bread - but hungry for love. Naked not only for clothing - but naked of human dignity and respect. Homeless not only for want of a home of bricks - but homeless because of rejection.

  Mother Teresa

  Love, Kindness, Home

  Mother Teresa (2001). “Mother Teresa: Essential Writings”

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• People who are homeless are not social inadequates. They are people without homes.

  Sheila McKechnie

  Home, People, Social

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• Homeless shelters, child hunger, and child suffering have become normalized in the richest nation on earth. It's time to reset our moral compass and redefine how we measure success.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  Children, Suffering, Earth

  "The State of America’s Children 2012" by Marian Wright Edelman, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 3, 2012.

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• Not everyone who's homeless is a drug-addict or in need of mental health care. Some are normal people who've been knocked down, and it can happen to you, too. Not all of us made bad life choices.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  People, Choices, Drug

  "Author Spotlight: Kevin J. Anderson & Sherrilyn Kenyon". Interview with Liz Argall, www.lightspeedmagazine.com. August 2016.

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• Don't try to drive the homeless into places we find suitable. Help them survive in places they find suitable.

  Daniel Quinn

  Trying, Helping, Housing

  Daniel Quinn (1999). “Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure”, Harmony

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• If sometimes our poor people have had to die of starvation, it is not that God didn't care for them, but because you and I didn't give, were not an instrument of love in the hands of God, to give them that bread, to give them that clothing; because we did not recognize him, when once more Christ came in distressing disguise, in the hungry man, in the lonely man, in the homeless child, and seeking for shelter.

  Mother Teresa

  Lonely, Children, Men

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• Poverty is not dated. Homeless people have looked the same since the thirteenth century. Go back to the times of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. Look at photographs. It's amazing. The face on a homeless person is timeless.

  Dustin Hoffman

  People, Looks, Poverty

  "What I've Learned: Dustin Hoffman" by Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. October 16, 2007.

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• We have come dangerously close to accepting the homeless situation as a problem that we just can't solve.

  Linda Lingle

  Acceptance, Problem, Accepting

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• Was I always going to be here? No I was not. I was going to be homeless at one time, a taxi driver, truck driver, or any kind of job that would get me a crust of bread. You never know what's going to happen.

  Morgan Freeman

  Jobs, Struggle, Bread

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• There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought -a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!

  Mark Twain

  Dream, Lonely, Loneliness

  The Mysterious Stranger ch. 11 (1916)

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• Seven out of 10 Americans are one paycheck away from being homeless.

  Pras Michel

  Seven, Paychecks, Homelessness

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• After all, a homeless man has reason to cry, everything in the world is pointed against him.

  Jack Kerouac

  Men, World, Cry

  Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.122, Penguin

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• A homeless man standing at the off-ramp: the question in these moments isn't whether Jesus is in Him, but in me.

  Mark Hart

  Jesus, Men, Ramp

  Mark Hart (2013). “Tweet Inspiration: Faith in 140 Characters (or Less)”, p.37, Franciscan Media

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• In America, you are not required to offer food to the hungry or shelter the homeless. There is no ordinance forcing you to visit the lonely, or comfort the infirmed. No where in the Constitution does it say you have to provide clothing to the poor. In fact, one of the nicest things about living here in America, is that you really don't have to do anything for anybody. But when you do, you give meaning and provide soul to the concept of community...and develop a sense of purpose to something greater than one's self.

  Pope Paul VI

  Lonely, America, Self

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• Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

  Emma Lazarus

  Inspirational, Freedom, Tired

  "The New Colossus" l. 10 (1883).

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• These days many politicians are demanding change. Just like homeless people.

  George Carlin

  Humorous, People, Election

  George Carlin (2002). “Napalm & Silly Putty”, Hyperion

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• I mean, I don't think I'm alone when I look at the homeless person or the bum or the psychotic or the drunk or the drug addict or the criminal and see their baby pictures in my mind's eye. You don't think they were cute like every other baby?

  Dustin Hoffman

  Cute, Baby, Mean

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• And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.

  William Wordsworth

  Home, Cooking, Tables

  William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth (1815). “Poems”, p.87

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• Our listening creates a sanctuary for the homeless parts within another person.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Compassion, Focus, Listening

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• Poverty. Racism. Isn't it strange, only the homeless are begging for change?

  Bo Burnham

  Funny, Humor, Racism

  47 Copy quote

• The works of mercy are the opposite of the works of war, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, nursing the sick, visiting the prisoner. But we are destroying crops, setting fire to entire villages and to the people in them. We are not performing the works of mercy but the works of war.

  Dorothy Day

  War, Nursing, Fire

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