Pedro Reyes Quotes

We assume that we've come so far as compassionate citizens of the world if we do choose to read the news, yet the attitude towards life can be one where we put blinders on and forget that there are civil wars going on. It's easy to forget that there are so many people starving to death every single day.

Our humanitarian aid system is sick and needs to be fixed. It needs to get a reality check and get back humanity.

Oftentimes people ask me, 'Why is it that you're so focused on helping the hungry and diseased in strange parts of the world?'

I cannot fail to note once again that the poor constitute the modern challenge, especially for the well-off of our planet, where millions of people live in inhuman conditions and many are literally dying of hunger. It is not possible to announce God the Father to these brothers and sisters without taking on the responsibility of building a more just society in the name of Christ.

The world remains beset by so much human suffering, poverty and deprivation. It is in your hands to make of our world a better one for all, especially the poor, vulnerable and marginalised.

We are living in the 21st century, and children are dying of hunger, so how do we fight it?

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

I wrote 'The Blue Sweater' to inspire more people to become engaged in working to solve the problems of global poverty.

There is a lot that happens around the world we cannot control. We cannot stop earthquakes, we cannot prevent droughts, and we cannot prevent all conflict, but when we know where the hungry, the homeless and the sick exist, then we can help.

It cannot be right in a world of increasing human progress - whether in medicine, space exploration or renewable energy - that so many people are denied the most basic human rights.

When I first started working with World Vision, I would sit down and talk with them about issues that concern any part of the world. MSF told me about what was going on in North Korea. I also support AIDS and breast cancer charities.

We all need to be a part of the fight against injustice, insecurity and irresponsibility towards children and the world.

It’s scandalous when one thinks about the people who live in a world in which they need not be hungry, in which they need not die without medical care, in which they need not be illiterate, they need not feel hopeless and miserable so much of the time, and yet they are.

I spent almost 25 years as a foreign correspondent, and the world's primary problem is poverty.

We've got the wrong vision, the wrong values, the wrong priority, and as the great prophetic figure Marian Edelman Wright puts it, we have been AWOL when it comes to poor people and poor children.

There are people all over the world starving and here we are trying to get pot delivered for free; we felt kind of guilty.

I hope that something can be done in our piece that reflects on the attention that needs to be paid to the most vulnerable people, like refugees in the world right now, that have to not be politicized, but saved, literally.

Many feel that sitting at a screen sweating over the design of handrail details for the next cute downtown boutique hotel just doesn't make sense when more than 150,000 people have lost their lives, more than five million people have been made homeless and whole towns have been swept away.

Just to be a functioning adult in the world, we develop all of these layers of protection. When we see homeless people, we don't cry, even though homeless people probably deserve our tears - you know, it's a horrible thing.

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.

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.

It was a privilege to be president and it is a privilege to be a former president and I believe that I have got a chance to be a part of something that is influential - but not for my sake, but for the sake of people dying in Africa or people worried about a free society in their countries or people who wonder whether there will be a free market.

America is concerned more with the possibility of moon folks than the reality of hungry poor folks.

There are tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of people living in poverty and danger who might readily seek to enter a Western country if the opportunity is there.

I want to make sure that nobody's dying on the streets when I'm president.