Poverty Quotes / Quotations 

Famous Quotes and Quotations about Poverty

Poverty Quotes 1-28 out of 28
At first it was the incomes of corporations, then of rich citizens, then of well-provided widows and opulent workers, and finally the wealth of housemaids and the tips of waitresses. This is all in line with the ability to pay doctrine. The poor, simply because there are more of them, have more ability to pay than the rich.
more Frank Chodorov quotes
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Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty. [Fr., Les republiques finissent par le luxe; les monarchies, par la pauvrete.]
more Charles de Montesquieu quotes
more John Foster Dulles quotes
more Benjamin Franklin quotes
Phil Donohue: When you see around the globe the maldistribution of wealth, the desperate plight of millions of people in underdeveloped countries, when you see so few haves and so many have-nots, when you see the greed and the concentration of power, did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism? And whether greed is a good idea to run on? Milton Friedman: Well first of all tell me, is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy. It's only the other fella that's greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The greatest achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty that you are talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it's exactly in the kind of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system. Phil Donohue: Seems to reward not virtue as much as the ability to manipulate the system. Milton Friedman: And what does reward virtue? You think the Communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? Do you think... American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of political clout? Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? You know I think you are taking a lot of things for granted. And just tell me where in the world you find these angels that are going to organize society for us? Well, I don't even trust you to do that.
more Milton Friedman quotes
If I have worked harder and built myself a good house while you have been content to live in a hovel, the tax gatherer now comes annually to make me pay a penalty for my energy and industry by taxing me more than you. If I have saved while you wasted, I am [taxed] while you are exempt. If a man built a ship, we make him pay for his temerity as though he had done injury to the state; if a railroad be opened, down comes the tax collector upon it as though were a public nuisance.... We punish with a tax the man who covers barren fields with ripening grain; we fine him who puts up machinery and him who drains a swamp. To abolish these taxes would be to lift the whole enormous weight of taxation from productive industry.... The state would say to the producer, “Be as industrious, as thrifty, as enterprising as you choose. You shall have your full reward!”
more Henry George quotes
It would take little more than $50 billion to raise every poor person above the official poverty line, yet the percentage of the population classified as poor hardly budges, while annual welfare spending amounts to four times that much. Where's the money going?
more Robert Higgs quotes
An economy cannot long remain prosperous by government's taxing and spending more, now absorbing national output at a rate equal to the entire income of every American living west of the Mississippi. If this trend continues, America will gradually sink into the status of a Third World nation -- more unemployment, more shackles on production, more poverty.
more John Hospers quotes
more Robert G. Ingersoll quotes
more John F. Kennedy quotes
more Charles Koch quotes
more Lao-Tzu quotes
The poor despise labor when performed by slaves.
more George Mason quotes
more Bob McEwen quotes
You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money.
more P. J. O'Rourke quotes
This leftist political strategy to win office and power relies on something very powerful: the desire to increase the number of Americans who are dependent on getting money that is taken from other citizens.  Sadly, this strategy has worked for half a century! And now it works because Americans who are trapped in this nightmare do not want their government money taken away from them!
more Star Parker quotes
more Dr. Adrian Rogers quotes
Forcing people to be more 'unselfish' creates animosity instead of good will. Trying to control selfish others is a cure worse than the disease. ... In trying to control others, we find ourselves controlled. We point fingers at the dictators, the Communists, the politicians, and the international cartels. We are blithely unaware that our desire to control selfish others creates and sustains them. Like a stone thrown in a quiet pond, our desire to control our neighbors ripples outward, affecting the political course of our community, state, nation, and world. Yet we know not what we do. We attempt to bend our neighbors to our will, sincere in our belief that we are benevolently protecting the world from their folly and short-sightedness. We seek control to create peace and prosperity, not realizing that this is the very means by which war and poverty are propagated. In fighting for our dream without awareness, we become the instruments of its destruction. If we could only see the pattern!
more Dr. Mary J. Ruwart quotes
more Vin Scully quotes
more Lucius Annaeus Seneca quotes
For often evil men are rich, and good men poor; But we will not exchange with them Our virtue for their wealth since one abides always, While riches change their owners every day.
more Solon quotes
more Paul Thiel quotes
more Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi quotes
more George Watson quotes
more J. C. Watts, Jr. quotes
more Ron Weddington quotes
The biblical exhortation to 'Be fruitful and multiply,' was directed toward a small tribe, surrounded by enemies. We are long past that. Our survival depends upon our developing a population where everyone, contributes. We don't need more cannon fodder. We don't need more parishioners, We don't need more cheap labor. We don't need more poor babies.
more Ron Weddington quotes
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