Haile Selassie Quotes

The first world is going to have to account for this sort of horrible poverty in our midst. We have to, first of all, become aware of it. We have to take responsibility for it. And then we have to do something about it for our own freedom, for our own salvation, for our own humanity.

The time has come for an all-out war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of these".

This is to assuage our conscience, darling" she would explain to Blanca. "But it doesn't help the poor. They don't need chartiy; they need justice.

When we see people that are impoverished and people who are dealt an unfair hand, then if we have the power to help them, we should try to do that.

In a world of global dependencies with no corresponding global polity and few tools of global justice, the rich of the world are free to pursue their own interests while paying no attention to the rest.

The wealthy have a responsibility to invest in addressing inequality. This is especially true when constraints on others are so great.

Capitalism, even 150 years ago, was more inclusive; there was more of a sense of social responsibility…. Today the system doesn’t seem to be as fair or inclusive. It doesn’t seem to be helping broader society.

I'm not a philanthropist. While I care about the poor, the issue of local or global poverty doesn't keep me up at night.

Not to share one’s goods with the poor is to rob them and to deprive them of life. It is not our goods that we possess, but theirs.

God does not create poverty; we do, because we do not share.

The developing world voice can be amplified enormously by support from the wealthy and the privileged, otherwise it's very likely to be marginalized.

The poor are great! The poor are wonderful! The poor are very generous! They give us much more than what we give them.

Other human beings have a right to peace and happiness that is equal to our own; therefore we have a responsibility to help those in need.

Pay attention to the hungry, both in this country and around the world. Pay attention to the poor. Pay attention to our responsibilities for world peace. We are our brother's keeper.

We will act to build a better world. We always have, we always will. We will act to lend a helping hand, not just here but wherever we humanly can.

I regard philanthropy as a tragic apology for wrong conditions under which human beings live.

All of the incessant debate about development assistance, and whether the rich are doing enough to help the poor, actually concerns less than 1% of rich world income. The effort required of the rich is indeed so slight that to do less is to announce brazenly to a large part of the world: 'You count for nothing.' We should not be surprised, then, if in later years the rich reap the whirlwind of that heartless response.

By going into third world countries and serving, by actually feeding and helping people, I've been led to focus a little more on how people here try to be happy by ignoring other people who are unhappy.

These days there is a lot of poverty in the world, and that's a scandal when we have so many riches and resources to give to everyone. We all have to think about how we can become a little poorer.

Britain has no divine right to be one of the richest countries in the world.

We must create a kind of globalization that works for everyone... and not just for a few.

The greatest difficulty with the world is not its ability to produce, but the unwillingness to share.

The whole world is set up so that for places like Switzerland to exist, that are crime-free and with the best care for everybody, you have to have places like Sudan, or Jamaica. But really, there's enough to share, when you check it. It's not that complicated, really. It's probably less thinking and more feeling that's required.

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.

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