Poverty Quotes - Page 40

• A lot of kids spent more time out of school than in, but I always loved school and thought it was my way out of Cleveland, and out of poverty.

  Tracy Chapman

  School, Kids, Cleveland

  "The quiet revolutionary". Interview with Amy Fleming, www.theguardian.com. October 30, 2008.

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• I think the United States and the secretary of State should be concerned about the poverty in this country - people without health insurance. The United States should stop being the empire and be concerned about other countries. You've got to be more worried about your own people.

  Hugo Chavez

  Country, Thinking, People

  "Larry King Live", www.realclearpolitics.com. September 24, 2009.

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• If you want a future of shared prosperity, where the middle class is growing and poverty is declining, where the American Dream really is alive and well again, and where the United States remains the leading force for peace and justice and prosperity in a highly competitive world, you have to vote for Barack Obama.

  William J. Clinton

  Dream, Class, United States

  "2012 Democratic Convention: Bill Clinton Goes All-In for Obama's Reelection in Rousing Speech" by Tina Daunt, www.hollywoodreporter.com. September 5, 2012.

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• To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Happiness, Bread, Obliged

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.207

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• There are more than 300,000 families in the Gulf region that lost their homes and are waiting for peace of mind. The hurricane exposed the sad reality of poverty in America. We saw, in all its horrific detail, the vulnerabilities of living in inadequate housing and the heartbreak of losing one's home.

  Harry Connick, Jr.

  Home, Reality, America

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• 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.

  Quentin Crisp

  Air, Grace, Genius

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• He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust.

  Emily Dickinson

  Dust, Spirit, Poor

  c.1883 Complete Poems, no.1587 (first published 1890).

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• You know how people love to glamorize poverty? There's nothing glamorous about it. But it did make me really creative. Those days, I was literally taking t-shirts in the day and sewing them back together to make dresses for the night.

  Beth Ditto

  Night, People, Creative

  "Beth Ditto Talks Style, Substance, and Her New MAC Line". Interview with Alex Catarinella, www.elle.com. June 7, 2012.

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• The price of indulging yourself in your youth in the things you cannot afford is poverty and dependence in your old age.

  Dorothy Dix

  Women, Age, Youth

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• I came from abject poverty. There was nowhere to go but up.

  Kirk Douglas

  Nowhere To Go, Nowhere To Go But Up

  "Kirk Douglas: What I've Learned" by Mike Sager, www.esquire.com. January 29, 2007.

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• Did you know that nearly one in three children live apart from their biological dads? Those kids are two to three times more likely to grow up in poverty, to suffer in school, and to have health and behavioral problems.

  Tony Dungy

  Children, Growing Up, Dad

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• The poor man wishes to conceal his poverty, and the rich man his wealth: the former fears lest he be despised, the latter lest he be plundered.

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

  Men, Wish, Wealth

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• Far less wealthy industrialized countries have committed to end child poverty, while the United States is sliding backwards. We can do better. We must demand that our leaders do better.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  Country, Children, Leader

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• What happened after Katrina is that people were stirred to action; there were an enormous number of contributions by people trying to make a difference. But then we forget. We've forgotten Katrina victims, we've forgotten the face of poverty.

  Elizabeth Edwards

  Differences, Numbers, People

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• Both chronic, long-term poverty and downward mobility from the middle class are in the same category of things that America likes not to think about.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Thinking, Class, America

  "Tomdispatch Interview: Ehrenreich, The Prey and the Predators". Interview with Tom Engelhardt, www.tomdispatch.com. June 4, 2006.

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• It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.

  Anatole France

  Money, Business, Credit

  "Pierre Noziere". Book by Anatole France, 1899.

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• 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

  Thinking, Giving, World

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• Before this learning experience, I had assumed that with regard to programs that sought to help people out of poverty, the political world was essentially divided into two camps: conservatives who opposed these for a variety of reasons, and liberals who supported them.

  Barney Frank

  Two, People, Political

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• The point is that there is tremendous hypocrisy among the Christian right. And I think that Christian voters should start looking at global warming and extreme poverty as a religious issue that speaks to the culture of life.

  Al Franken

  Christian, Religious, Thinking

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• Collectively, we activists are essential to advancing U.S. policy to help empower marginalized people to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty for good.

  Michael Franti

  People, Empowering, Community

  "Time for Passion and Strategy on Climate Change" by Michael Franti, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 26, 2009.

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• Richness in the world is a result of other people's poverty. We should begin to shorten the abyss between haves and have-nots.

  Eduardo Galeano

  People, World, Haves And Have Nots

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• You can't put a load of rockstars up on a stage and expect to wipe out global poverty. That's ludicrous.

  Noel Gallagher

  Wipe, Stage, Rockstars

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• The Right insists that anyone can escape poverty by working hard but that is simply not the case.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Work, Cases, Hard

  "The biggest brother". Interview with Sean O'Hagan, www.theguardian.com. July 20, 2003.

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• First we have to recognize that the cause of poverty is both structural and behavioral. And the first thing about the behavior part is that we need a moral revolution within the African American community. Look - no white racist makes you get pregnant when you are a black teenager.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Teenager, White, Community

  "35 Million Ways to Be Black". Interview with Adam Hochschild, www.motherjones.com. March 14, 2007.

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• The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending discrimination, by itself, would not eradicate black poverty and dysfunction. We also need intervention to promulgate a middle-class ethic of success among the poor, while expanding opportunities for economic betterment.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Opportunity, Class, Dysfunction

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