Coretta Scott King Quotes

Greater inequality in Europe has made people less happy.

As a child I experienced firsthand the severe effects of poverty and illiteracy, especially upon women and children. My parents taught me the importance of education and that it was a key to improving an individual's life.

If you go on TV and say there's no other country in the world where you can be born poor and become rich, you get a huge megaphone. If you tell the truth, which is that most of the studies show actually the United States is worse than anybody except Britain in upward mobility, there is no audience for you.

I do care about not 99 percent or 95 percent. I care about the very rich and the very poor. I care about 100 percent of America.

We are one of the richest countries in the world, and there is absolutely no reason why anyone should have to live in poverty.

There should not be one new dime in tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires as long as millions of children in America are poor, hungry, uneducated and without health coverage.

Let Socialists make the laws today and they would break them tomorrow. No sooner do the poor become rich than they harden their hearts to the miseries of the poor. In so far as it proposes to correct the evils of unequal fortune, Socialism aims to repeal the laws of nature.

… mankind will no longer passively submit to crushing poverty with its effects of death, disease, and decline.

The real threat to the democracy is the half a nation in poverty.

Unequal wealth distribution is a risk factor for inequality that must be attacked by policies.

Poverty is multidimensional. It extends beyond money incomes to education, health care, political participation and advancement of one's own culture and social organization.

The zooming wealth of the top 1 percent is a problem, but it’s not nearly as big a problem as the tens of millions of Americans who have dropped out of high school or college. It’s not nearly as big a problem as the 40 percent of children who are born out of wedlock. It’s not nearly as big a problem as the nation’s stagnant human capital, its stagnant social mobility and the disorganized social fabric for the bottom 50 percent.

Economic inequality is a corrosive force that undermines economic growth, puts a brake on the fight against poverty, and sparks social unrest.

I think it's criminal the way poverty is allowed to flourish.

The traditional story of economists has been to say education explains what the returns are to school. I say, 'Okay, that's fine, but what explains the education? How much is just a matter of my giving you a poor kid versus a rich kid?'

Income inequity has to be addressed.

I avoid going through places where there's too much poverty.

I have been poor and I wanted to document poverty; I had lost a child and I was obsessed with birth; I was interested in politics and I wanted to know how it affected our lives; I am a woman and I wanted to know about women.

Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious.

We can't have Harlem become one borough for the rich.

A considerable share of the world's population still cannot afford comfortable housing, education and quality health care.

If no man could become rich in Peru, no man could become poor.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

I want to wage war against illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, unfair competition, communitarianism, delinquency.

Poverty and lack of education are ruining our planet.