Bill Clinton Quotes

Global poverty is a powder keg that could be ignited by our indifference.

We think of violence as being conflict and fighting and wars and so forth, but the most ongoing horrific measure of violence is in the horrible poverty of the Third World... and the poverty in the United States as well.

We live increasingly in a world of haves and have-nots, of gated communities next to ghettos, of extreme poverty and unbelievable riches. Some enjoy rights that are completely denied to others. Relative inequalities are exploding, and the world's poorest, despite all the advances of globalisation, may even be getting poorer.

Poverty is unnecessary.

I think the collision between the First and Third world is going to become more and more conspicuous. It's the big cliff that we've all got to climb.

The poverty one still sees in America today is more shocking to me than anything I have seen in Ethiopia or Calcutta or Manila, and has made me, as someone living in a society of great wealth and someone who's never had to worry about the next meal, think seriously about what universal responsibility really means.

It would be nice if the poor were to get even half of the money that is spent in studying them.

Individual effort is almost relatively impossible to cope with the big problem of poverty as we see it.

If you're totally illiterate and living on one dollar a day, the benefits of globalization never come to you.

Ridding the world of poverty is, of course, a fantasy.

Our time has experienced greater technological progress than ever existed before, and yet we are faced with the fact that world-wide poverty, hunger, death of children, unemployment, misery and the destruction of nature have not abated but rather to some extent increased. Many peoples are threatened with economic ruin, social disarray, political marginalization and national collapse.

What must a poor nation do when its very sustenance depends on the remains and bits that the nations gracefully throw them, once they have had their fill…. Our planet is rich enough to provide for all of us, so why this tragic war for life which has been clouding our lives for generations?

Never forget that there are rich people in poor countries and poor people in rich countries.

The developing world is poor. It needs capital.

Hunger, the inseparable companion of the poor, is the offspring of the unequal distribution of the wealth and the injustices in this world. The rich do not know hunger.

Poverty divide not only nations but societies within nations.

Inequality of income is bad for everyone, not just the poor and the middle class.

… perceptions of poverty have gone up because there’s been rising inequality.

No society is healthy when the gap between the rich and the poor is growing.

If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.

While we have created prosperity for many, too many are being left behind.

Everyone's seen poverty - well, most have.

Why do some people have to go barefoot so that others can drive luxury cars? Why are some people able to live only 35 years in order that others can live 70 years? Why do some people have to be miserably poor in order that others can be extravagantly rich? I speak for all the children in the world who don't even have a piece of bread.

It’s scandalous when one thinks about the people who live in a world in which they need not be hungry, in which they need not die without medical care, in which they need not be illiterate, they need not feel hopeless and miserable so much of the time, and yet they are.

Poverty is a plague against which humanity must fight without cease.