Muhammad Yunus Quotes

I do not give alms; I am not poor enough for that.

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.

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

Almsgiving tends to perpetuate poverty; and does away with it once and for all. Almsgiving leaves a man just where he was before. Aid restores him to society as an individual worthy of all respect and not as a man with a grievance. Almsgiving is the generosity of the rich; social aid levels up social inequalities.

By helping the poor, we must be able to remove their poverty. By extending help to one here and one there in the form of providing food will not remove poverty

I have to address the economic conditions of everybody, including, and perhaps first, those who are poor.

What we need is a safety net that lifts people out of poverty - that helps them earn a good paycheck so they can support themselves.

Nobody wants to remain poor. Those who are poor want to move away from poverty. That is why, all our programmes must be for the poor. All our schemes must serve the poor.

Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor.

Hard as it may appear in individual instances , dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful.

Anticipate charity by preventing poverty.

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

We've got to take care of the poor.

In my youth, I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.

I will also continue to fight to provide better economic security for victims of domestic violence.

Charity is a fine thing if it's meeting a gap where needs must be met and there are no other resources. But in the long term we need to support people into helping themselves.

Of course we have compassion. We just don't believe the safety net should be used as a hammock.

The World Bank is just a sponge for every do-good idea of relieving poverty.

In the drastic move from the serfdom to freedom, it is probably better for ex-slaves to be soldiers, and thus gradually learn to support themselves than to be thrown on the cold charities of the world without sympathy or assistance.

Healing Advices for the Poor

I never knew an instance of the English parliament's undertaking to relieve the poor, by a distribution of bread in time of scarcity.... I think, that according to the principles of their government, they would only vote a sum of money, and address the King to employ it for the best.

There should only be charity when it does not increase the need for charity.

Let’s make the poor richer.

The thing that the government does very well is to write checks. Get rid of all the bureaucracy and programs and just write check [to the poor].