Muhammad Yunus Quotes

Microfinance recognizes that poor people are remarkable reservoirs of energy and knowledge, posing an untapped opportunity to create markets, bring people in from the margins and give them the tools with which to help themselves.

Microfinance recognizes that poor people are remarkable reservoirs of energy and knowledge

The invention of the micro-loan was a big surprise to me. Who would have guessed loans of less than $20 made to poor people in undeveloped countries could create thriving local economies? And, even more surprisingly, that they more reliably pay off their debts than the wealthy of the world.

I went to the bank and proposed that they lend money to the poor people. The bankers almost fell over.

Microfinance does not require previous experience or loans to the same extent as a small-business loan, so it's easier for women to enter the micro sector.

The best way poor people can come out of their poverty is to get on the global highway, not on some dirt side road.

We can remove poverty from the surface of the earth only if we can redesign our institutions - like the banking institutions, and other institutions; if we redesign our policies, if we look back on our concepts, so that we have a different idea of poor people.

When combined with information and communication technologies, microcredit can unleash new opportunities for the world's poorest entrepreneurs and thereby revitalize the village economies they serve.

Microloans enable the poor to lift themselves out of poverty through entrepreneurship.

My vision for the future? Two things: to make credit a human right so that each individual human being will have the opportunity to take loans and implement his or her ideas so that self-exploration becomes possible. And second: that it will lead to a world where nobody has to suffer from poverty - a world completely free from poverty.

People everywhere in the world are hungry for economic opportunity. And it's about a lot more than being able to make money.

We think the way out of poverty is to view the poor as producers, and the Internet is probably the most efficient tool we have for tapping this capacity. Because you don't need roads. You don't need customs officials who are friendly. You don't need to manage shipping and delivery schedules. You don't have to worry about tariffs.

I founded Grameen Bank to provide loans to those considered traditionally unbankable. Grameen Bank works with the poorest and often illiterate, providing uncollateralized micro-loans for tiny business enterprises by which they can lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

Our goals for this nation must be nothing less than to double the size of our economy and bring prosperity and jobs, ownership and equality of opportunity to all Americans, especially those living in our nation's pockets of poverty.

There are many programs specifically aimed at helping people in poverty start a business.

Through my studies, I became increasingly disillusioned with the international aid system. I think we systematically deny poor people the chance to engage as equals in the global economic order. At best, we give them handouts or tiny loans and hope they will suffer a bit less from extreme poverty. We don't view them as equals.

We developed microfinance to fight loan sharks - I was telling people don't go to loan sharks - not trying to take advantage and make money for myself. I would be a junior loan shark if I did... It is not a panacea.

I had no idea that I would ever get involved with something like lending money to poor people, given the circumstances in which I was working in Bangladesh.

Microcredit has shown how you can reach out to people that conventional banking cannot. It has demonstrated that it's a doable proposition.

There are 4 billion cell phones in use today. Many of them are in the hands of market vendors, rickshaw drivers, and others who've historically lacked access to education and opportunity. Information networks have become a great leveler, and we should use them together to help lift people out of poverty and give them a freedom from want.

Maximum Feasible Participation of the Poor

A generation of entrepreneurs will mop up poverty at a rate that no government ever could.

Irrespective of economic theories, we will take decisions in the larger interest of the poor people.

In Indonesia, Qualcomm, in a joint project with Grameen Foundation, has provided a range of mobile phone-based services to individuals. This project facilitates the creation of businesses for those living at the bottom of the economic pyramid and, at the same time, extends telecommunication access to people who cannot afford a mobile phone.

For me, as the Government of India, the interest of the poorest of the poorest is paramount.