Mikhail Gorbachev Quotes

The very right to be human is denied every day to hundreds of millions of people as a result of poverty, the unavailability of basic necessities such as food, jobs, water and shelter, education, health care and a healthy environment.

It's shocking to me still, that children - just because of where they're born - are born into a life of extreme poverty and hunger. Humans, we can survive without a lot of luxuries we are lucky to live with. But the thing we need most is healthy food and clean water. Without that we can't survive and we can't thrive.

More people have smart phones than clean water

Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations, hostility and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society.

In many parts of the world, more people have access to a mobile device than to a toilet or running water.

Charities are now working to give people in poor countries access to the Internet. But shouldn't we spend that money on providing health clinics and safe water? Aren't these things more relevant? I have no intention of downplaying the importance of the Internet, but its impact has been exaggerated.

We have got some mountains to move. Three billion people - half of God's children - are living on less than $2 a day.

One half of the world's people live on less than two dollars a day. This should concern our national security policy as well as our conscience.

I have said democracy and freedom do not work too well if you are hungry, if you are starving.

Nobody in America lives at the survival level, Most people in the world would love to live the way poor Americans live.

People who can turn on a tap and have safe and clean water to drink, to cook with and to bathe in often take it for granted — and yet more than one billion of our fellow human beings have little choice but to use potentially harmful sources of water

The poor people drink water which is very good and very common in this country.

It's hard for people who have never faced hunger or illiteracy to understand how crucial they are to the majority of mankind.

What does peace mean in a world in which the combined wealth of the world's 587 billionaires exceeds the combined gross domestic product of the world's 135 poorest countries?

To think that some people don't have clean water was mind-boggling to me.

From those who agonize that they may no longer be able to write off their private jet to someone who doesn't feel like making the three mile hike to the well to get water and carry it back, everyone struggles.

For instance, people who have to walk miles for water - and we just turn on the faucet and let it run. Or people right here in our country [USA] who are food insecure, and yet we as a nation throw out an inconceivable amount of food.

We must acquaint the youth to the realities of the world... we must tell them that millions of people around the world have no access to drinking water.

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.

We have the opportunity now to look at the two billion people in the world who suffer from the most abject poverty, hunger, disease, and devastation. Add to that another two billion people who are just plain poor. If you look into the world of those caught in economic oppression, illiteracy, disease, and sexism, then you'll understand more clearly what we have to do.

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.

I saw a charity appeal in the Guardian the other day, and it read "Little Zuki has to walk 13 miles a day just to fetch water". And I couldn't help thinking, she should move.

When you do not have the basic requirements for survival and safety and belongingness and where there are huge inequities then fear turns into hatred.

There can be no peace as long as there is grinding poverty, social injustice, inequality, oppression, environmental degradation, and as long as the weak and small continue to be trodden by the mighty and powerful.

Water is important to people who do not have it, and the same is true of control.