Jimmy Carter Quotes

It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.

I can't look in the mirror and see people dying on the street that should have the same opportunities that I've had. And say 'You know what? I can live with myself.' Because I can't if I just watch.

I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.

Half the world does not know how the other half lives.

We live in a world in which we're seeing an increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Civil rights are meaningless without economic rights.

There are but two families in the world … The haves and the have-nots.

… in the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat – or get eaten up

The inequality that exists today, … derives less from the unequal availability of opportunity than from the unequal ability to exploit opportunity …

The burning issue of our time is the growing inequality in income and wealth in our country.

Freedom breeds inequality.

Liberty is impossible if 36 thousand families at the top of the economic pyramid get as much income as 12 million families at the bottom.

Crimes increase as education, opportunity, and property decrease. Whatever spreads ignorance, poverty and, discontent causes crime.... Criminals have their own responsibility, their own share of guilt, but they are merely the hand.... Whoever interferes with equal rights and equal opportunities is in some real degree, responsible for the crimes committed in the community.

You can't start taking away benefits if people don't have any opportunities.

The chasm between rich and poor is becoming larger, and I think it's interesting terrain to talk about and expose.

Disparity is Australia's worst social problem. Thousands of lives are slowly being crushed, while billions are wasted on thousands of little initiatives trying to 'close the gap.'

The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor.

Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself.

We are privileged. There are poor people out there. We must to do something to make them privileged.

I've lived places these guys can't defecate in.

Mitt Romney subscribes to the cynical logic that says the American dream belongs to some of us but not all of us.

The difference between rich and poor is becoming more extreme, and as income inequality widens the wealth gap in major nations, education, health and social mobility are all threatened.

It's not my fault that there is this gap between rich and poor, it is the fault of governments. I want a different world. One where I don't wake up thinking I'm so lucky to be able to feed my daughter.

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

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.