Emma Thompson Quotes

In India there are more poor people in three states... than there are in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

It's easy to sit in relative luxury and peace and pontificate on the subject of the Third World debts.

Whatever the amount may be, it is an obligation we cannot escape. It is a part of the obligation that the rich nations of the world, particularly America, must carry out.

The rich world likes and wishes to believe that someone, somewhere, is doing something for the Third World. For this reason, it does not inquire too closely into the motives or practices of anyone who fulfills, however vicariously, this mandate.

Without an advocate for the poor, without a new state of mind in America, the country lies on the brink of anarchy.

Always remember: the alleviation of poverty is never a political or economic issue - it is moral.

I think, collectively, we should be paying more attention to what is going on around us in the world among people who don't have the advantages that we have.

I feel great identification with the developing world.

While the technology revolution has yet to reach far into the households of those in developing countries, this is certainly another area where more developed countries can assist those in the less developed world.

I guess I strongly feel that we cannot pretend that the Third World is not part of our world. We cannot say 'OK, there's that problem over there, let's just close our eyes' - we cannot do that.

The forgotten world is made up primarily of the developing nations, where most of the people, comprising more than fifty percent of the total world population, live in poverty, with hunger as a constant companion and fear of famine a continual menace.

Certainly I'll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I've gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.

On a macro level, four billion people on Earth make less than four dollars a day.

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

If we think we have ours and don't owe any time or money or effort to help those left behind, then we are a part of the problem rather than the solution to the fraying social fabric that threatens all Americans.

Few, save the poor, feel for the poor.

You can't put a load of rockstars up on a stage and expect to wipe out global poverty. That's ludicrous.

The shock caused by the September 11 events has also lead to a thorough reflection on the existing disparity between rich and poor countries, on the misery of populations of the South.

Live Below the Line raises real money to help the world's poorest people, but it is also a symbolic demonstration aimed at highlighting - not replicating - the plight of the world's poor.

I don't think that people in America are really given enough information about the Third World.

I feel it's part of my job to make the problems of the poor compelling.

There is no doubt that the world economy is in trouble. But if governments or individuals use this as an excuse to reduce assistance to the world's poorest people, they will only multiply the seriousness of the problem for the world as a whole.

Attacking the indecency of life in much of the Southern Hemisphere is no longer a matter of grace, of charity, of patronizing kindness. It is a matter of intense self-interest.

One of the biggest challenges facing the globe is the gap that exists in the wealth and standards of living enjoyed by the world's nations.

There is still a severe and scary amount of extreme poverty in rural parts of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Burma and sub-Saharan Africa.