Robert H. Jackson Quotes

I have spent all my life advocating on behalf of the poor, oppressed and marginalized. As a social justice and human rights activist, and now as President of the Republic of Malawi, I have a deep appreciation for the challenges of those on the margins of society.

I have said democracy and freedom do not work too well if you are hungry, if you are starving.

Our nation cannot call for respect for human rights when it lacks the moral courage to save its own cities, its own poor, its own minorities whose rights are trampled upon.

Poverty Corrodes Freedom

Discrimination and multiple deprivations of human rights are also frequently part of the problem, sentencing entire populations to poverty... It is surely a matter of outrage that over half a million women die annually from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. This is nearly half the annual global death toll, and arguably, a direct reflection of the disempowerment of women in social, economic and political life.

We're not stupid! We're just poor! And we have a right to insist on this distinction

The problem in Guatemala is that there is no solution to the issue of human rights. The problem is militarization, it is the injust distribution of wealth. It is intolerance of the indigenous, it is discrimination and marginalization.

When the man who feeds the world by toiling in the fields is himself deprived of the basic rights of feeding, sheltering, and caring for his own family, the whole community of man is sick.

I was shocked when I came to New Orleans. I never knew there were beggars on the streets here. I didn't know that there were poor people. I thought this was Heaven, you know?

Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations, hostility and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society.

If the market is left to sort matters out, social injustice will be heightened and suffering in the community will grow with the neglect the market fosters.

It's difficult to write about poverty in a way that doesn't feel cliched.

Nobody is poor unless he stand in need of justice.

Sanctions always hurt the poor, the weak, the children.

Oscar Wilde said the rich and the poor are equal - they can both sleep under the bridge. Right? Do they have a right? You're damn right they have a right!

There is one class of men, whom it especially behoves to be tenacious of the right of free discussion. I mean the poor.

I don't want to see that two-tier Senegal, that two-tier Africa, when you have those at the top and those at the bottom, people who are hungry, people who do not have enough to eat.

Almost certainly, however, the first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind.

One half of the world's people live on less than two dollars a day. This should concern our national security policy as well as our conscience.

During the Great Depression, African Americans were faced with problems that were not unlike those experienced by the most disadvantaged groups in society. The Great Depression had a leveling effect, and all groups really experienced hard times: poor whites, poor blacks.

Just because you are poor and have no voice does not mean that you don’t deserve police protection.

Poverty makes slaves of free men.

We will continue to move from misery to poverty with dignity.

Excessive economic and social disparity between individuals and peoples of the one human race is a source of scandal and militates against social justice, equity, human dignity, as well as social and international peace.

The poor will never cease out of the land.