Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“[T]he worst of human maladies is poverty — though that is a second lye — for poverty of spirit is worse than poverty of purse, by ten thousand per cent.”
Laurence Sterne (1713–1768) first seen 1762 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: to F--- Toulouse, March 29, 1762.
“If farmers become weak the country loses self-reliance but if they are strong, freedom also becomes strong. If we do not maintain our progress in agriculture, poverty cannot be eliminated from India. But our biggest poverty alleviation programme is to improve the of our farmers. The thrust of our poverty alleviation programmes is on the uplift of the farmers.”
Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Inagural Speech at the 25th National Convention of the Bharat Krishak Samaj, Hyderabad, 15 February 1988. Transcript at . Quoted in
“The United States should provide an annual income of $12,000 for each American aged 18–64, with the amount indexed to increase with inflation. It would require a constitutional supermajority to modify or amend. ... The poverty line is currently $11,770. We would essentially be bringing all Americans to the poverty line and alleviate gross poverty.”
Andrew Yang (born 1975) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The War on Normal People (2018), p. 166
“Poverty is poison. Poverty is a pain. We need to rise together and make concerted efforts to reduce poverty and make this world a happy place to live in.”
Amjad Saqib first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: as quoted in the news report about receiving the recognition from "Commonwealth Point of Light Award" - (Pakistan Today report dated March 28, 2018)
“The poor and the middle class work for money.” “The rich have money work for them.”
Robert Kiyosaki (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If money is all that a man makes, then he will be poor — poor in happiness, poor in all that makes life worth living.”
Herbert N. Casson (1869–1951) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Herbert N. Casson cited in: Forbes magazine (1950) The Forbes scrapbook of Thoughts on the business of life. p. 302
“One of the glaring failures of capitalism is the continuing widespread existence of poverty - often extreme poverty. Even in the advanced economies, many millions of people endure terrible economic and social deprivation, despite the incredible wealth all around them.”
Jim Stanford (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Camacho also hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves... his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent.”
Evo Morales (born 1959) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton in Bolivia Coup Led by Christian Fascist Paramilitary Leader, a Multi-Millionaire – with Foreign Support, Consortium News, (12 November 2019)
“I also believe that in many parts of this country, and certainly in many parts of this globe, that the opposite of poverty is not wealth. I don't believe that. I actually think, in too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice.”
Bryan Stevenson (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science has dramatically reduced poverty in the world today. But our work is not finished. Science must help us harness the power of agriculture to bring wealth and hope to places in Africa and other developing parts of the world where there is now mostly poverty and pessimism.”
Agnes Kalibata first seen 2026 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dr Agnes Kalibata NAS Speech. agra.org (September 20, 2026)
“Now we have income taxes, and we have people that are dying. They're paying tax, and they don't have the money to pay the tax. In the old days … we had so much money, they had to set up committees, blue-ribbon committees, [on] how to spend our wealth. We had no idea how to spend it with so much money. Then we went to the income tax system and the rest is sort of history. But no, there is a way”
Donald Trump (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing. Money no doubt, makes always a part of the national capital; but it has already been shown that it generally makes but a small part, and always the most unprofitable part of it.”
Adam Smith (1723–1790) said by 1790 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Egoism and Money [Goddess of wealth; Lakshmi] are very much at odds [have great enmity]. There should be just enough egoism to accomplish one’s work. Beyond that, any expanded egoism and money have great enmity. Money (Lakshmi) stays away from it.”
Dada Bhagwan (1908–1988) first seen 1742 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Aptasutra (2016), Gujarati Edition, Translated, Quote Number: #1742
“Birth control helps conservation by reducing poverty and hunger in communities that live around protected areas and wildlife-rich habitats. If families are better able to balance the family budget by having fewer children to feed, they are less likely to enter the park for food and fuelwood and are better able to send their children to school, enabling them to break the cycle of poverty.”
Gladys Kahaka wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“China is now suffering from poverty, not from unequal distribution of wealth. Where there are inequalities of wealth, the methods of Marx can, of course, be used; a class war can be advocated to destroy the inequalities. But in China, where industry is not yet developed, Marx's class war and dictatorship of the proletariat are impracticable.”
Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Capital and the State (1924)
“Many individuals are capable of creating wealth but are excluded from the job market by minimum wage and licensing laws. Much poverty can be alleviated by allowing people to create wealth at whatever level they can and ‘work their way up.’”
Mary Ruwart (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Great wants proceed from great wealth; but they are undutiful children, for they sink wealth down to poverty.”
Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696–1782) said by 1782 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This road came because of foreign aid. Foreign aid came to us because supposedly we're poor. Our governments are literally poor. They don't have enough money to cater to all the needs of what the government would need money for.”
Magatte Wade (born 1976) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I come from a background of artists being poor, and I have vowed that I will not put up a production if artists are not going to be paid. I will look for funding. I will look for money so that artists--especially the young artists--know that you can actually live in this career. You can be able to make money and not stay poor.”
Thoko Ntshinga (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a saying in Tibetan that “at the door of the miserable rich man sleeps the contented beggar”. The point of this saying is not that poverty is a virtue, but that happiness does not come with wealth, but from setting limits to one’s desires, and living within those limits with satisfaction.”
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“First, justice was the promise that all who made the journey would share in the fruits of the land. In a land of great wealth, families must not live in hopeless poverty. In a land rich in harvest, children just must not go hungry. In a land of healing miracles, neighbors must not suffer and die unattended. In a great land of learning and scholars, young people must be taught to read and write.”
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The utopians want all men to be equally rich or well-off, this equality in wealth or comfort, is the promise with which they entice the workers; For if the workers knew that the result of the agitation would be, as we have seen, universal poverty and mediocrity, they would not listen to them.”
Federico De Roberto (1861–1927) said by 1927 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Aryans' Discipline, to build a friendship is to build wealth, to maintain a friendship is to maintain wealth and to end a friendship is to end wealth.”
Gautama Buddha (501–501 BC) said by 501 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A slave is one who must produce wealth for another," the Brain said. "There is only one true wealth in all the universe. I have given you some of it. I have given your father and your mate some of it. And your friends. This wealth is living time. Time. Are we slaves because we have given you more time to live?”
Frank Herbert (1920–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In London it was not the interests of class which were specially concentrated. It was there that wealth was all-powerful; and wealth has taken desperate offence at their actions during the present year because the Government recommended to Parliament that power in the English army shall no longer be the prize of wealth, but the reward of merit.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1871 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Whitby on the Cardwell Reforms (2 September 1871), quoted in The Times (4 September 1871), p. 12
“Socialism depends upon and presupposes material achievements which socialism itself can never create. Socialism is operative only in wealth situations brought about by motes of production other than its own. Socialism takes and redistributes wealth, but it is utterly incapable of creating wealth.”
Leonard E. Read (1898–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If Commerce is necessary to wealth, no Commerce means no wealth, and our statesman soon finds himself out of employment. Where wealth again is greatest, everything else being fairly equal, arts thrive the most.”
Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]wo numbers is all we need. The median... wealth for the average Russian is $871, according to ... Median wealth in India, over a thousand dollars. The other number is 110... individuals own 35 percent of the wealth of Russia.... the most unequal country by far in the world.”
Karen Dawisha (1949–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Efforts are underway to create a new fully-fledged Sovereign Wealth Fund. “This fund will invest in sustainable domestic and foreign assets across various industries, thereby transforming resource wealth into financial wealth.”
Ndaba Gaolathe (born 1971) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gov't greenlights new Sovereign Wealth Fund 14 February 2025
“The goal of ending poverty is within reach and everyone can contribute to it by getting involved or supporting organizations that are already working to give the poor a better life... No one should be doomed to a life of poverty, whether by birth or as a consequence of war.”
“Poverty is a crime. I do not mean that it is a crime to be poor. Murder is a crime; but it is not a crime to be murdered; and a man who is in poverty, I look upon, not as a criminal in himself, so much as the victim of a crime for which others, as well perhaps as himself, are responsible.”
Henry George (1839–1897) said by 1897 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By helping the poor, we must be able to remove their poverty. By extending help to one here and one there in the form of providing food will not remove poverty”
Periyar E. V. Ramasamy (1879–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“MT [ Mother Teresa ] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How the American right managed to convince itself that the programs to alleviate poverty are responsible for the consequences of poverty will someday be studied as a notorious mass illusion. ("Look to the Children of the Poor in This Season of Budget-Slashing", 1995)”
Molly Ivins (1944–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was a passion from my childhood to work for children, I carried it forward. I have been very strongly advocating that poverty must not be used as an excuse to continue child labour. It perpetuates poverty. If children are deprived of education, they remain poor.”
Kailash Satyarthi (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A sound anti-poverty strategy should not only aim to increase s, but also provide the poor with a variety of assets — personal, social, political and environmental to help them overcome human poverty.”
Raja Chelliah (1922–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By what miracle has this poor nation managed to stay so good, so welcoming, so joyful for so long, despite its poverty, despite injustice, prejudice, and our many civil wars?...Despite the ruins, despite the poverty, our little town remains beautiful. I realize this once in a while, in jolts of awareness. Habit destroys pleasure. (p8)”
Marie Vieux-Chauvet (1916–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Low-quality roads also raise more poor people out of poverty per yuan invested than high-quality roads, making them a win–win strategy for growth in agriculture and poverty alleviation.”
Calestous Juma (1953–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The rich people are those who create wealth, and you have to treat them well so they continue to give wealth.”
Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech (26 May 1988), quoted in "Las frases para el bronce de Pinochet.
“If rich men would remember that shrouds have no pockets, they would, while living, share their wealth with their children, and give for the good of others, and so know the highest pleasure that wealth can give.”
Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) said by 1894 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are two reasons most people don’t attain wealth: they didn’t think they were smart enough to get rich and they were never taught how to create wealth.”
“As a child growing up in the precincts of wealth, and later as a college student, newspaper reporter and resident of New York's Upper East Side, I got used to listening to the talk of financial killings and sexual misalliance that animates the conversation of the rich and the familiars of the rich.”
Lewis H. Lapham (1935–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sometimes I see signs on walls saying Kill the Rich,” Clem said. “And sometimes Kill the Rich has been crossed out and Harm the Rich written underneath. A clear gain for civilization I would say. And the one that says Jean-Paul Sartre Is a Fartre. Something going on there, you must admit. Dim flicker of something. ...”
Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be.”
Rita Rudner (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I started Oracle, what I wanted to do was to create an environment where I would enjoy working. That was my primary goal. Sure, I wanted to make a living. I certainly never expected to become rich, certainly not this rich. I mean, rich does not even describe this. This is surreal.”
Larry Ellison (born 1944) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Smithsonian Institution Oral and Visual Histories, Oral History Interview with Lawrence Ellison (24 October 1995).
“The people only ask for what is necessary, it only wants justice and tranquility, the rich aspire to everything, they want to invade and dominate everything. Abuses are the work and the domain of the rich, they are the scourges of the people: the interest of the people is the general interest, that of the rich is a particular interest...”
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) said by 1794 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I can make you rich. I'll change your bum life. You fight me, it's a celebration. When you sign to fight me, it's a celebration. You ring back home, you ring your wife, "Baby, we've done it. We're rich baby. Conor McGregor made us rich. Break out the red panties.”
Conor McGregor (born 1988) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: UFC Go Big press conference (September 2015) Ultimate Fighting Championship, Zuffa, LLC
“[Links to a post on a Seth Rich conspiracy website falsely claiming a DNC staffer was the source for Wikileaks.] Yet when you go to the website, it tells as if Seth Rich is speaking from the dead saying all the horrible things are true. That Hillary rigged the election against Bernie Sanders. That John Podesta had him [Rich] murdered. That John Podesta is a pedophile and pizza gate [sic] is real.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene (born 1974) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: American Truth Seekers (deleted post, [November 15,] 2017), cited in "GOP candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene spread conspiracies about Charlottesville and 'Pizzagate'" CNN Kfile (August 25, 2020). Precise date from articl…
“Sometimes I see signs on walls saying Kill the Rich,” Clem said. “And sometimes Kill the Rich has been crossed out and Harm the Rich written underneath. A clear gain for civilization I would say. And the one that says Jean-Paul Sartre Is a Fartre. Something going on there, you must admit. Dim flicker of something. ...”
Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In many myths, the one possibility the gods are most anxious about is that humans will discover some secret of immortality or even... attempt to stride the high heavens. ...It's a little bit like the rich imposing poverty on the poor and then asking to be loved because of it.”
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source