John Podhoretz Quotes

I'm from a working-class background, and I've experienced that worry of not having a job next week because the unions are going on strike. I know that because I don't come from a wealthy background.

The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near poor back on front of the American agenda.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

I think food and education will help stem the poverty of the young people who are being drawn into terrorism every day.

People who work full-time in America should not have to live in poverty - simple as that. Too many jobs don't pay enough to get by, let alone get ahead. Too many people are finding the rungs on the ladder of opportunity further and further apart.

It's hard to bring up your children on benefit. It's easier if you can do part- time work, or even full-time work, and actually have a better standard of living, and that's the direction in which we are going.

You can't very well live in a castle while your kin is on the poor side of town and barely have enough food. Some want you to get to the top and rely on you making it for them, too.

Those of us who have been economically successful cannot forget those who have not.

We justify the greater and greater accumulation of capital because we believe that therefrom flows the support of all science, art, learning, and the charities which minister to the humanities of life, all carrying their beneficent effects to the people as a whole. Unless this is measurably true our system of civilization ought to stand condemned.

Unless we labor to help others achieve a reasonable stake in society, we may find ourselves losing the society in which we have too great a stake.

Poverty was not caused by the churches; so how can the churches solve the poverty problem?

Of what use is political liberty to those who have no bread? It is of value only to ambitious theorists and politicians.

Emma Lazarus was wrong. America's first duty is to its own poor.

In a land of great wealth, families must not live in hopeless poverty. In a land rich in harvest, children just must not go hungry. In a land of healing miracles, neighbors must not suffer and die unattended. In a great land of learning and scholars, young people must be taught to read and write.

The impoverishment of any single people in the world means danger to the well-being of all other peoples.

We will not rest until this war [on poverty] is won.

Amartya Sen is best known to the general reader for his powerful essays on famine. He is an optimist about some of our gravest economic problems, such as mass starvation in a world that at present can easily produce more food than everyone can eat. Reason and voluntary participation are his watchwords.

Those memories of living in a developing nation are part of who I am today and give me a profound understanding of the challenges of economic development - an understanding which will make my tenure as Peace Corps director, I hope, a very special one.

The best route out of poverty, to avoid food bank usage, is to make sure more people get a job.

We develop the kind of citizens we deserve. If a large number of our children grow up into frustration and poverty, we must expect to pay the price.

The privileged classes today are bothered about petrol and diesel prices while the poor can't afford two meals a day. I am a very small person, but I want us to think beyond personal and regional interests.

Middle class jobs prevent crime and violence.

My real passion is social justice, resolving the lack of empowerment, the lack of skills, the fact that young people can't get on the housing ladder, they feel they can't have a decent job, they feel they aren't in control of their lives.

I grew up thinking I was going to change the world, but not because I was treated like a special snowflake. It's a silly label. People are starving. We need to feed them. That's the end of the conversation.

The technologists and entrepreneurs I know are generally good people. If they were given a choice, 'Do your job and eliminate normal jobs' or 'Do your job and create abundant opportunities,' they would choose the latter. Most of them would happily even take a small hit to do so. But this isn't a choice they're given.