Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

What we need is a safety net that lifts people out of poverty - that helps them earn a good paycheck so they can support themselves.

I care for the poor. I am the one willing to work with the poor and have a safety net we can all depend on and make people understand that nothing in life is free. You have to get back to society.

The war on poverty is not a struggle simply to support people, to make them dependent on the generosity of others. It is a struggle to give people a chance.

We think there are better solutions to fighting poverty because we see what the War on Poverty has produced. It produced tens of trillions of dollars in spending. It has been a 51-year exercise, and yet the poverty rates in America today are not much better than when we started the War on Poverty.

Government should exist in order to help fortify the country and make those who are in need better able to meet their own.

I see an America where poverty is defeated by opportunity, not enabled by a government check.

Before this learning experience, I had assumed that with regard to programs that sought to help people out of poverty, the political world was essentially divided into two camps: conservatives who opposed these for a variety of reasons, and liberals who supported them.

I'm not saying that people on welfare don't contribute in their own way, but as many as possible should be encouraged to be economically active as well as socially and culturally active.

We don't want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into complacency and dependence.

We've got to take care of the poor.

Our number one priority is to spend every peso possible to include those who are currently excluded.

With fewer resources to share around more people, how can the poor have improved lifestyles?

Alleviating poverty would be the Bank's overarching objective.

I lived through a golden period where society felt that it was good to help people who didn't have a great deal of money fulfil their potential.

I want to fight poverty and ignorance and give opportunity to those people who are locked out.

It's a powerful thing to know that you are empowering someone to lift themselves out of poverty.

To me, that's the role of government: not to give people a hand out, but a hand up... giving people the tools to pave their own way to success.

We in the majority have worked hard to empower people to create opportunities, to make jobs, to do things that turn America into a place where people can achieve their dreams.

In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land.

An important lever for sustained action in tackling poverty and reducing hunger is money.

I knew that good people who wanted to be a part of the American dream have become trapped in dependency because the federal government and the state government had made it in their economic interest not to take a job because the benefits that they didn't work were better. I changed that.

Social Security is a problem solving program, not a problem creating one .... Social Security is our best anti-poverty program.

Reduction of dependency is the greatest unmet need in social policy today.

Let’s make the poor richer.

Generous, effective, and broadly accessible social welfare policies do not require large government bureaucracies staffed with armies of public servants.