Amartya Sen Quotes

I decided in '96 to dedicate my life to mostly promoting literacy and education for girls in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Very likely education does not make very much difference.

I was very fortunate to be able to go to school and university, because many people our age couldn't complete school. This gift of education must be used in whatever ways we can to uplift the people.

Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope... Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition.

It is curious that while one's education is the part of one's life over the conditions of which one has least individual control, the results of it are held to brand one irrevocably.

Education makes us the human beings we are. It has major impacts on economic development, on social equity, gender equity. In all kinds of ways, our lives are transformed by education and security. Even if it had not one iota of effect [on] security, it would still remain in my judgment the biggest priority in the world.

Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in the cities, but the girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they've learned. If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls.

I hope that people around the world will be as inspired as I am to step up and to speak out on behalf of girls around the world who struggle to go to school.

With no education, you have neocolonialism instead of colonialism, like you've got in Africa now and like you've got in Haiti. So what we're talking about is there has to be an educational program. That's very important.

Getting more girls a good education requires an approach that harnesses the collective efforts of developing nations, donor nations, multilateral organizations, NGOs, private-sector institutions.

Know thyself. Remain steadfast. Follow your dreams. These are great directives and perfectly fitting for graduates. But reality is that achieving dreams takes a solid education - education that remains elusive for too many Americans.

Canada truly understands that girls and women who have access to a safe and high-quality education is a priority.

In just my interaction, I go to factories, and I talk to our employees. And in Canada, they have had a least a year or two more education. It's like, almost, I never run into anybody who hasn't finished high school. And in the United States, you have a lot who dropped out of 11th grade or whatever.

I don't believe most kids enjoy school at all, and that's a shameful waste, considering how curious and excited kids are to learn. They're naturally curious, full of wonder.

As a graduate student at Harvard, I had to explain quite a few times that I was allowed to attend a university as a woman in Iran.

For more than 20 years, Camfed has supported a generation of African girls and women with access to secondary and higher education, employment opportunities, and, ultimately, into positions of leadership.

Everybody in my family is very well educated. I'm probably the only one who is not a double post graduate.

I dropped out of school after my tenth standard. But both my elder brother and younger brother are highly educated.

My father's side of the family was very active in education.

The biggest obstacle facing girls is education, education, education. There are too many kids who think high school is a pit stop to fame and fortune. I want girls in this country to think education is the coolest, most important thing they could ever do in their lives.

Mainly because as women's education increases all around the planet, we find that family size tends to drop.

Today, 8 million adult Americans, more than the entire population of Michigan, have not finished 5 years of school. Nearly 20 million have not finished 8 years of school. Nearly 54 million - more than one-quarter of all America - have not even finished high school.

Around the world we have girls in primary school at about the same rate now as boys, but keeping them in quality secondary schools is where the world is lagging. I'm seeing a lot of countries look at this now.

Every child has a right to go to high school and end up with a third grade education.

We didn't educate women, because the leaders then didn't think they were educable. That changed when a shortage of teachers developed, because men didn't get paid enough to teach school. Then men, who held the positions of power, sent women to teachers' colleges.