Tommy Douglas Quotes

In rural areas of America, there is a growing increase in poverty, homelessness and hunger. You cannot separate these factors from domestic violence ?- a mother with three kids and no financial security is going to stiffen her lip and take the abuse, because not only does she have nowhere else to go, she has three children depending on her for survival.

Homeless shelters, child hunger, and child suffering have become normalized in the richest nation on earth. It's time to reset our moral compass and redefine how we measure success.

Hundreds, thousands, aye, millions of human beings, men, women and children, wander the streets of our cities and the highways of our country, hungry, ragged and cold, vainly seeking in this land of plenty, where physical want should be unknown.

Pale and pinched-up faces hovered about the windows where was tempting food; hungry eyes wandered over the profusion guarded by one thin sheet of brittle glass--an iron wall to them; half-naked shivering figures stopped to gaze at Chinese shawls and golden stuffs of India.

There are people in America who are absolutely desperate right now, who have no means to support their families, who have no opportunities to better themselves or their education - and they're not that different from the farmers and working-class people that I visited when I went to Kenya with Oxfam.

When I see a child who is hungry, I see a person who is humiliated.

There are 200 million poor in the world who would gladly take the vow of poverty if they could eat, dress and have a home like I do

I was aware that a quarter of the children in the country are born in poverty, and that the condition of public schools in California was disastrous.

Do I gotta go sell me a whole lotta crack for decent shelter and clothes on my back?

All around the world, there are children wishing they had some cool sneakers like you do. But before you decide to give them your old pair, they'd first like a decent meal, some fluid, and some medication so they can walk comfortably in your shoes.

Poverty calls us to sow hope.... Poverty is the flesh of the poor Jesus, in that child who is hungry, in the one who is sick, in those unjust social structures.

When did you ever hear of a child not in need? 'Oh that's enough jam tart for me, I'll just go now and clean the toilets.'

As long as many of our people still live in utter poverty, as long as children still live under plastic covers, as long as many of our people are still without jobs, no South African should rest and wallow in the joy of freedom.

Childhood hunger in America is as much a paradox as it is a tragedy. Why, in the wealthiest country in the world, should hunger darken the lives and dreams of 12 million children and their families? I believe that, when Americans learn the facts and understand how their involvement can make a difference, banishing childhood hunger will be a national, local and personal priority.

Poverty is a divine stepmother who does for youths what their own mothers were unable to do. It introduces them to frugality, to the world and to life.

Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soulless army of human prey.

Poverty is not just a lack of money; it is not having the capability to realize one's full potential as a human being

Complaint is poverty.

Why can't a state that launches cosmonauts into space provide enough eggs and milk for its city children during the winter months?

When a poor person dies of hunger it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.

Badly off as the men...were in your day, they were more fortunate than their mothers and wives.

Children, together with women, constitute 90 percent of all refugee populations on the planet as well as the vast majority of those living in absolute poverty: the 'feminization of poverty' means that children are poor, too, since most parenting is done by mothers.

In the poorest of the poor we see Jesus in distressed guise.

In vast stretches of the earth, men awoke today in hunger. They will spend the day in unceasing toil. And as the sun goes down they will still know hunger. They will see suffering in the eyes of their children. Many despair that their labor will ever decently shelter their families or protect them against disease. So long as this is so, peace and freedom will be in danger throughout our world. For wherever free men lose hope of progress, liberty will be weakened and the seeds of conflict will be sown.

People who are homeless, they're not all addicts. A lot of times, they're just people who, through something like losing their job or losing someone in their life, ended up on the streets. So much of our time is spent in cars that sometimes you need to look out of those windows. And you see that a dollar, 50 cents, whatever you have, may not mean much to you, but it means everything to people who are hungry and who are in need.