Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

The underlying justification for the theft of our lands has always been that we were not making proper use of them, and that these lands could be put to better use. The wilderness that we cultivated … was simply going to waste. It was selfish of us to padlock our vast forests and plains and deprive millions of hungry and millions of landless from their enjoyment. It was argued that stealing our land would provide for the common good … and all would become better off as a result…during this process, we would be lifted from our less-than-civilized state and would eventually recognize the goodwill that had been lavished upon us. Today, most of our lands and most of the wilderness are gone and yet there are more poor people than ever, more misery… And today there are those who still argue that tearing down the remaining … lands benefits humanity, or in today's jargon, "creates jobs." … we can only ask: "Has our land indeed been put to better use?" Could there have been another way?

The entire tenant system operated by coercion and dependence. Landowners did not want their tenants to improve, because then they would have less control over them. A hungry worker was the best worker, or so many southern cotton growers believed. No one—neither tenants nor their landlords—had any problem making children and women work in the fields.

Four specters haunt the Poor - Old Age, Accident, Sickness and Unemployment. We are going to exorcise them. We are going to drive hunger from the hearth. We mean to banish the workhouse from the horizon of every workman in the land.

This kingdom [Colombia] … does not enjoy an active commerce. It’s subsistence consists of gold taken from its mines, without trade, export of its agriculture and manufactures…. The local officials everywhere are indifferent and careless as to their duty; the people are steeped in poverty; trade is almost extinct; capital is lacking, and there are no opportunities for its investment; the only source of support is the cultivation of small patches of ground. Every one seeks to subsist on the government by procuring some little office.

What can he do who lacks the necessary work, if he comes to be unemployed? He has nothing but to let himself die of hunger. Then a few phrases of pity will thrown on his cadaver.

As long as the working-people fold hands and pray the gods in Washington to give them work, so long they will not get it. So long as they tramp the streets, whose stones they lay, whose filth they clean, whose sewers they dig, yet upon which they must not stand too long lest the policeman bid them "move on"; as long as they go from factory to factory, begging for the opportunity to be a slave, receiving the insults of bosses and foremen, getting the old "no," the old shake of the head, in these factories they built, whose machines they wrought; so long as they consent to herd like cattle, in the cities, driven year after year, more and more, off the mortgaged land, the land they cleared, fertilized, cultivated, rendered of value; so long as they stand shivering, gazing thro' plate glass windows at overcoats, which they made, but cannot buy, starving in the midst of food they produced but cannot have; so long as they continue to do these things vaguely relying upon some power outside themselves, be it god, or priest, or politician, or employer, or charitable society, to remedy matters, so long deliverance will be delayed.

Even if we could produce enough food globally to feed everyone satisfactorily, the continued steady rise in the cost of inputs will mean increasing numbers will not be able to afford the food we produce. This is a key point that is often missed.

There are some bored foreigners, with full stomachs, who have nothing better to do than point fingers at us … First, China doesn't export Revolution; second, China doesn't export hunger and poverty; third, China doesn't come and cause you headaches, what more is there to be said?

… authors generally neglect that growth has lifted billions of people out of grinding poverty and that others may remain poor because of the developed world’s environmental concerns …

Italy is in truth a poor country with a population which does not all find employment in its native land--whence the phenomenon of emigration. She also possesses large numbers of intellectual proletarians who have got to eat even if they find no employment after graduation from school. It is, therefore, only too explicable that there has had to be a social policy leading to the creation of numerous officials, some of which may be noxious to the development of certain branches of national activity. For the same reason it was natural in a country with moderate capitalist enterprise that laws should be enacted favoring cooperation. Thus we came to have thousands upon thousands of cooperative enterprises in Italy …

The South presents right now the Nation’s No. 1 economic problem.

We are sorry for the hungry, enough to give them food, but not sorry enough to tackle the CAUSES which make hunger possible. We are sorry for the unemployed, but not sorry enough to shoulder the job of abolishing unemployment by means of A NEW AND DARING INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM.

Go ask Virginia— go ask even noble Maryland ... to show you her people, canals, railroads, universities, schools, charities, commerce cities, and cultivated areas.

Improving the productivity of crops is fundamental to ending extreme poverty. Sixty percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa earn their living by working the land. But given the region’s generally low agricultural productivity—yields of basic cereals are five times higher in North America—Africa remains a net importer of food. This gap between supply and demand will only grow as the number of mouths to feed increases.

For every challenge we face - unemployment, poverty, crime, income growth, income inequality, productivity, competitiveness - a great education is a major component of the solution.

Why do we need to support the food stamp program? Because low-income families experience unemployment at a far higher rate than other income groups. Because cutting nutritional assistance programs is immoral and shortsighted, and protecting families from hunger improves their health and educational outcomes.

I have a vision of India: an India free of hunger and fear, an India free of illiteracy and want.

I have been down and out, living in Brooklyn, no money even for a subway, no food whatsoever. Like, I remember just sitting in my room all day - even my television wasn't working!

I want to show the world that there is more to Africa than poverty, hunger, and disease.

I was a young mother with a dependent. I went from nice flat and fire service job to cold and hungry with a child. I lived rough for two years, with six months relying on the food bank.

I voted with most of my colleagues in the U.S. House to reject a farm bill that would have cut $20 billion from the SNAP program.

I was struggling, I was hungry, I was a freelance copy editor but had very little work.

There is no such thing as an acceptable level of unemployment, because hunger is not acceptable, poverty is not acceptable, poor health is not acceptable, and a ruined life is not acceptable.

Can we not wage a war and emerge victorious against poverty. Let us defeat poverty.

Land!” shouted Thomas. “Is there food?” asked Tubby Ted.