Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die.

Some folks believe that hardship breeds artistic creativity. I don’t buy it. One can put up with poverty for a while when one is young, but it will inevitably wear a person down.

Who, being loved, is poor?

I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.

Don’t be a writer; it’s a terrible way to live your life. There’s nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don’t expect anything from anybody.

I think it’s wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly.

Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.

These days there is a lot of poverty in the world, and that’s a scandal when we have so many riches and resources to give to everyone. We all have to think about how we can become a little poorer.

To give aid to every poor man is far beyond the reach and power of every man. Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.

The poor don’t know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.

I grew up in an era of pretty severe poverty. My parents weathered the Great Depression, and money was always a very big concern. I was weaned on a shortage mentality and placed in foster homes largely because there simply wasn’t enough money to take care of the most basic of needs.

The problem is that the U.S. government is the biggest debtor in the world, and those depending on it to take care of them will only become poorer.

I think big business is a terrible thing for the spirit of the country, as our spirit is the best thing about us.

If we take the route of the permanent handout, the American character will itself be impoverished.

I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share.

Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

The poorest people are the sweetest people.

The main message of Climate Revolution is that climate change is caused by the rotten financial system we’ve got, designed to create poverty and rip off any profits for a small amount of rich people. Meanwhile, it destroys the earth.

Free speech has been used by the Supreme Court to give immense power to the wealthiest members of our society.

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.

Every country must be absolutely free to adopt the type of economic, political and social system that it considers convenient.

What we have found in this country, and maybe we’re more aware of it now, is one problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice.

Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don’t need to imagine it. It’s called the United States of America.

I became a Communist by studying capitalist political economy, and when I had some understanding of that problem, it actually seemed to me so absurd, so irrational, so inhuman, that I simply began to elaborate on my own formulas for production and distribution.

I have seen firsthand that agricultural science has enormous potential to increase the yields of small farmers and lift them out of hunger and poverty.

I do remember how it was to be poor. I do remember that in my early years, we had to grow and raise all of our food, even our animals. And I remember in my early life, we didn’t even have electricity. So it was very, very hard times then.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

Poverty is the mother of crime.

He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

I was born in a very poor family. I used to sell tea in a railway coach as a child. My mother used to wash utensils and do lowly household work in the houses of others to earn a livelihood. I have seen poverty very closely. I have lived in poverty. As a child, my entire childhood was steeped in poverty.

It’s the poorer people in tropical zones who will get really hit by climate change – as well as some ecosystems, which nobody wants to see disappear.

You lose your individuality a huge amount when you have no money, and I certainly had that experience.

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

There are two types of poor people, those who are poor together and those who are poor alone. The first are the true poor, the others are rich people out of luck.

The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we’ll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.

Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.

You have to be very rich or very poor to live without a trade.

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.

The world at large is less inequitable today than at any time in history. Number of people in abject poverty, as a percentage, is at all-time low.

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

Life is an ordeal, albeit an exciting one, but I wouldn’t trade it for the good old days of poverty and obscurity.

In socialism, private property is anathema, and equal distribution of income the first consideration. In capitalism, private property is cardinal, and distribution left to ensue from the play of free contract and selfish interest on that basis, no matter what anomalies it may present.

Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force.

There is a noble manner of being poor, and who does not know it will never be rich.

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair.

The rise of capitalist practice and morality brought with it a radical revision of how the commons are treated, and also of how they are conceived.

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.

If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, ‚What are we going to do?‘ but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that’s nothing.

Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor.

I had to abandon free market principles in order to save the free market system.

Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people.

China adopted a capitalist system in the 1980s, and they went from a 60% poverty rate to 10%.