19 quotes about poverty and being poor

Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.

– Muhammad Ali

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

– John F. Kennedy

There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.

– Mahatma Gandhi

As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality exist in our world, none of us can truly rest.

– Nelson Mandela

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 too little.

– Franklin D. Roosevelt

There is enough in the world for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.

– Frank Buchman

When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.

– Mother Teresa

History is written by the rich, and so the poor get blamed for everything.

– Jeffrey D. Sachs

The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is enough.

– Dr. Wess Stafford

Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn’t commit.

– Eli Khamarov

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

– Mahatma Gandhi

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

– Aristotle

Extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere.

– Kofi Annan

Who, being loved, is poor?

– Oscar Wilde

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

– Barack Obama

I work a lot in the slums of Tondo, Manila, and the life there is poor and very sad. And I’ve always taught to myself to look for the beauty of it and look in the beauty of the faces of the children and to be grateful.

– Catriona Gray

Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.

– Sholom Aleichem

Poverty was the greatest motivating factor in my life.

– Jimmy Dean

If you are sad, think about the poorest person.

More quotes to explore:

I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.

– Robin Williams

If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.

– Mel Brooks

There isn’t any formula or method. You learn to love by loving – by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done.

– Aldous Huxley

What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.

– Bob Dylan

We accept the love we think we deserve.

– Stephen Chbosky

One often has to do what they have to do in order to do what they want to do; however if you only do what you want to do then you will never do what you have to do!

– Dr. C. Moorer

Life is too short to be angry or sad for long.

– Alphonso Davies

It is important that when we make a resolution, or establish a goal, that we take the ACTION necessary to accomplish that goal.

– Steve Maraboli

Forget yesterday – it has already forgotten you. Don’t sweat tomorrow – you haven’t even met. Instead, open your eyes and your heart to a truly precious gift – today.

– Steve Maraboli

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.

– Richard Bach

Great leaders create more leaders, not followers.

– Roy T. Bennett

God works wonders now and then; Behold a lawyer, an honest man.

– Benjamin Franklin

Using solar panels to power an air conditioning unit is like using the Sun’s power against itself.

Only do what your heart tells you.

– Princess Diana

While I understand the passions and the anger that arise over the death of Michael Brown, giving into that anger by looting or carrying guns, and even attacking the police, only serves to raise tensions and stir chaos.

– Barack Obama

True love doesn’t come to you it has to be inside you.

– Julia Roberts

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

– George Burns

Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

– Dylan Thomas

Even with all our technology and the inventions that make modern life so much easier than it once was, it takes just one big natural disaster to wipe all that away and remind us that, here on Earth, we’re still at the mercy of nature.

– Neil deGrasse Tyson

My mom is definitely my rock.

– Alicia Keys

Never run from the truth. It is always there; it never changes – save your energy.

– Steve Marabol

Its funny, because for females in general – not just in music, but the corporate ladder as well – anything we do has always been harder for us. When it comes to music, the industry wants you to conform, to look like this and to sound like this and do this or that. It makes it harder. It’s harder for us to come out and be bosses and lead the pack.

– Missy Elliott

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

– Tennessee Williams

Oh, love will make a dog howl in rhyme.

– Francis Beaumont

I’m not a playwright.

– Bob Dylan