#poverty

This country is going to implode, or put another way, it's going to get crushed under the weight of poverty. You can't have one percent of the people who own and control more wealth than the other 90 percent of the population. ↗

— Tavis Smiley

#another way #control #country #crushed #get

The rich old men start the wars, but it’s the poor young men who portend them. If they didn't get old and rich, some excuse might have to be found to launch invasions. ↗

— Bauvard

#humor #old-age #poverty #war #wealth

What an ironic tragedy that an affluent, “Christian” minority in the world continues to hoard its wealth while hundreds of millions of people hover on the edge of starvation! ↗

— Ronald J. Sider

#christianity #hunger #irony #majority #minority

Dare we care at all about current fashions if that means reducing our ability to help hungry neighbors? How many more luxuries should we buy for ourselves and our children when others are dying for lack of bread? ↗

— Ron Sider

#christianity #compassion #fashion #hunger #luxury

Launching a turnaround takes courage. I cannot measure that and so it is not going to be included in my analysis, but behind the moments of change there are always a few people within these societies who have decided to try to make a difference. ↗

— Paul Collier

#heroism #poverty #social-change #change

Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you! ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#heart #heartbreak #jane-eyre #love #misconceptions

So let us be clear about this up front: We hope to recruit you to join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women's power as economic catalysts. That is the process under way - not a drama of victimization but of empowerment, the kind that transforms bubbly teenage girls from brothel slaves into successful businesswomen. This is a story of transformation. It is change that is already taking place, and change that can accelerate if you'll just open your heart and join in. ↗

— Nicholas D. Kristof

#emancipation #empowerment #poverty #success #transformation

This time of year," she said, "people’s consciences gnaw at them. They give away truckloads of canned goods and quote Dickens and wring their hands over the ‘less fortunate.’" We boarded the Metro and took seats perpendicular to each other. "But God forbid anyone should address why they’re poor in the first place, or try to change the structures that keep them poor. Then the ‘less fortunate’ turn into ‘welfare queens’ and ‘derelicts.’ But if I were a lobbyist whoring on behalf of some transnational corporation, I’d never hear the word ‘derelict.’" "So when it comes to taking care of poor people," I said, "if Mother Teresa is the Hallmark card, then you’re the electric bill. ↗

— Jeri Smith-Ready

#change

You can't change things. That's life. Poor stays poor, rich says rich, and those two, they will never meet. ↗

— Antonia Michaelis

#change

I died last night. Seventy years too young. ↗

— Colin Thompson

#early-death #famine #global #ignorance #niger