Barney Frank Quotes

A New Dealer regrets poverty and deplores the fact that it is necessary for society to slough off its misfits as an individual sheds his impurities and his diseases. But New Dealers believe that human want and human distress should be prevented or at least ameliorated.

This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.

There never can be equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human plan contains varied talents and differing degrees of industry and thrift, but ours ought to be a country free from the great blotches of distressed poverty.

… poor people deserve access to food, education, housing, and medical services

You meet folks who are funny and really smart and persistent and loving that are confronting this thing we call poverty, which is just a shorthand for this way of life that holds you underwater. And you just wonder what our country would be if we allowed these people to flourish and reach their full potential.

If I could help every ghetto, I would.

And I do not intend to lead a state where we simply tolerate poverty in our communities.

It doesn't matter what color you are. Poverty is poverty. Inmates come from all walks of life. We have to make sure we look out for these people and give them a chance.

Those who minister to poverty and disease are accomplices in the two worst of all the crimes.

People don't need to become more aware of poverty - they need to know how to end it.

The results of the Great Society experiments started coming in and began showing that, for all its good intentions, the War on Poverty was causing irreparable damage to the very communities it was designed to help.

Without an advocate for the poor, without a new state of mind in America, the country lies on the brink of anarchy.

Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.

When we see people that are impoverished and people who are dealt an unfair hand, then if we have the power to help them, we should try to do that.

When you talk about war on poverty it doesn't mean very much; but if you can show to some degree this sort of thing then you can show a great deal more of how people are living and a very great percentage of our people today.

Parents with meager means have the same aspirations for their children as other parents. Children from poor families have the same needs as other children.

I got a degree in sociology, didn't read much fiction in college, and I was a pretty political, left-wing type of guy. I wanted to do some kind of work in social change and make things better for the poor man, and I was very romantic and passionate about it.

At the same, we need to remain sensitive to the reality that we are still an African society in which the majority of the people and communities live under severe deprivations and afflictions that are no fault of theirs.

I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.

I want to fight poverty and ignorance and give opportunity to those people who are locked out.

There was never a war on poverty. Maybe there was a skirmish on poverty.

Those born into poverty or on the margins of society require our extra support to realize their dreams.

I'm not one that believes that affirmative action should be based on one's skin color or one's gender, I think it should be done based on one's need, because I think if you are from a poor white community, I think that poor white kid needs a scholarship just as badly as a poor black kid.

Today we are ending welfare as we know it.

I believe in preferring the sanctity of human rights to the sanctity of property rights. I believe that the chief concern of government shall be for the poor because, as it is witnessed, the rich have ample means of their own to care for themselves.