Sophia Loren Quotes

You just have to be very humble if America has really worked for you like it has for me. Most of my friends are poor. Most of my siblings are poor. I see how hard it is just to get money unless you've got some incredible luck or work incredibly hard. I want everyone to do well. I wish 'Wayne's World' money on you!

I think earlier I struggled in a rickshaw and now I am struggling in a Bentley.

When you start off broke - and we weren't broke, we were negative broke - you never forget that. You stay appreciative.

Poverty can teach lessons that privilege cannot.

I don't come from a privileged background.

The fact is that, except for those very few whose wealth is overwhelmingly or entirely inherited, the more affluent have usually worked harder than the less affluent.

We know that in our free market economy some will prosper more than others. What we don't accept is the idea that some folks won't even get a chance.

What many economists fail to understand is that poor people are no less concerned about improving their lot and that of their children than rich people are.

I myself am from a very poor background; I experienced firsthand poverty in this country, and that is not unrelated to my desire, from the moment I became president, to make a priority of poverty reduction in this country.

Bums are the well-to-do of this day. They didn't have as far to fall.

Poverty makes you wise but it's a curse.

As you know, I'm a black girl out of the projects of New York City, raised in a single parent home because my parents divorced very very young... welfare and homeless at four and then again at 16 and just not having the things or the necessary tools that society would say I needed to have in order to be any kind of success in life.

As someone who came to New York in the 1970s, I was, like so many of my friends, a certified member of what we now call the 99 percent - and I was a lot closer to the bottom than to the top of that 99 percent. At some point during the intervening years, I moved into the 1 percent.

Those of us who have been economically successful cannot forget those who have not.

As income inequality increases, social mobility falls.

It’s what you have to do to find a way to kick poverty’s ass.

I grew up in a working-class neighborhood, so there was always a sense of struggle, but we had hope.

When I joined 'Essence,' I was a young, single mother. I was 24. I hadn't gone to college. I wasn't making any money at 'Essence' - what was it, $500 a month - and I was struggling. So I was always looking down the road, always hoping for a better, you know, tomorrow.

People who are underprivileged have more to grieve and have more to overcome.

My father was raised in an orphanage, and my mother was an immigrant from Poland whose first childhood memory was of hunger. Somehow, despite all of that, I am called a member of the 'elite.' If so, I damned well earned it.

I didn't grow up with a lot of money, but I grew up with a lot of opportunities that many people don't have.

I love Newark, but it was easy to get caught up in the wrong situation. You know, when you come from very humble beginnings, you always have that fear that everything could go away at any moment.

In Manipur, mostly the top player's family background is very poor. I also come from a poor family, so we have to do more hard work to get money and a better life.

For my own part, I have been wont to converse with poverty; and however disagreeable a companion she may be thought to be by the affluent and luxurious, who were never acquainted with her, I can live happily with her the remainder of my life if I can thereby contribute to the redemption of my country.

I know what not being able to pay your bills feels like real well... I know that way better than a room full of beautiful people and Tony awards and Grammy awards.