Charles Barkley Quotes

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.

When I was very young, I had to start to working to help my family, while my friends were studying. Since then, I have felt the urgency to escape from every dependency situation.

I just decided that I wasn't going to gain anything by going to school, since we couldn't afford it anyway, so I left school very early and went to work and progressively did things.

We are the men of intrinsic value, who can strike our fortunes out of ourselves, whose worth is independent of accidents in life, or revolutions in government: we have heads to get money, and hearts to spend it.

Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.

Too many Mainers are dependent on government handouts. Government dependency has not - and never will - create prosperity.

However my parents - both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

We are quite rich enough to defend ourselves, whatever the cost. We must now learn that we are quite rich enough to educate ourselves as we need to be educated.

My mom was on welfare and the occasional food stamp, but I have never participated in any of those governmental programs, even the ones that kind of work like education, scholarships and whatever, and I managed to do just fine.

Dependency is death to initiative, to risk-taking and opportunity. It's time to stop the spread of government dependency and fight it like the poison it is.

The government is not your salvation. The government is not your road to prosperity. Hard work, education will take you far beyond what any government program can ever promise.

I've been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No. No. They gave me hope, and they gave me encouragement, and they gave me a vision. That came from my education.

If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him.

You must be independent and able to do for yourself. Then you do not have to marry a rich man; you can marry a poor one. And if it is wrong, you can go.

My challenge to all Republicans is to invent the systems and approaches to help people help themselves.

Anywhere you go, where people are at the bottom, we've all got the same outlook on life and want to strive for more.

Sometimes well-intentioned programs can lead to dependency and cause us to forget we have what it takes to attain the American dream.

I did a job. I completed my Matric and my Bachelors. I did a marketing job. I worked as a bus hostess. I did a lot of jobs; I struggled a lot. I got out from there. The first thing I did when I got out of Darul Aman was my Matric. Then I did my Bachelors privately; I kept doing it.

Confidence is instrumental to those climbing out of poverty.

I don't want no handouts. I want to get it out the mud.

Hard work and education will take you farther than any government program can ever promise.

The faculty of self-help is that which distinguished man from animals; that it is the Godlike element, or holds within itself the Godlike element, of his constitution.

The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This, say its advocates, is free labor-the just and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all-gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all.

Most poor people I know are proud and really want not a handout but a hand up. They do have an inherent pride and dignity, and we should treat them as those who have fallen on bad days.

Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others-misfortu ne is not a mortgage on achievement-fai lure is not a mortgage on success-sufferi ng is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence-man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone’s altar nor for anyone’s cause-life is not one huge hospital.