Wealth And Poverty Quotes

• Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice.

  Nelson Mandela

  Hunger And Poverty, Hunger Poverty, Justice

  Twitter post from Jan 21, 2016

  143 Copy quote

  Show source

• The lack of money is the root of all evil.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Bible, Sarcastic

  Mark Twain, John Sutton Tuckey (1980). “The Devil's Race-track: Mark Twain's Great Dark Writings : the Best from Which was the Dream? and Fables of Man”, p.337, Univ of California Press

  154 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Money, Economic Inequality, History

  Second Inaugural Address, 20 Jan. 1937

  298 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Country, Countries Of The World, Government

  49 Copy quote

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

  Kin Hubbard

  Funny, Happiness, Inspiring

  48 Copy quote

• 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

  Science, Technology, Men

  Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1961

  59 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...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

  Time, Rights, Humanity

  13 Copy quote

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

  Antisthenes

  Happiness, Lying, Men

  29 Copy quote

• Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Giving, Poverty, Wealth

  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

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  6 Copy quote

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

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Wise

  Walden ch. 2 (1854)

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• ... 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

  Inspirational, Bible, Money

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

  101 Copy quote

  Show source

• The two great tests of character are wealth and poverty.

  Charles A. Beard

  Character, Two, Tests

  16 Copy quote

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

  Plato

  Luxury, Parent, Poverty

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

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Mean, Giving, Guilt

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

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Powerful, Land, Agriculture

  4 Copy quote

• Our values are defined by what we will tolerate when it is done to others. Everyone's sense of virtue is degraded by the present reality. A revolutionary principle is embedded in the global economic system, awaiting broader recognition: Human dignity is indivisible. Across the distances of culture and nations, across vast gulfs of wealth and poverty, even the least among us are entitled to dignity, and no justification exists or brutalizing them in the pursuit of commerce.

  William Greider

  Distance, Reality, Principles

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Law, Doe, Distribution Of Wealth

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Freedom, Fall, Science

  8 Copy quote

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

  Boyd K. Packer

  Evil, Choices, Accountability

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Pain, Life And Death, Noble

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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Ignorance, Men, Effort

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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Feelings, Would Be, Poverty

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

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Pain, Mirrors, Voice

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Opposites, Balance, Weight

  7 Copy quote