Poverty Quotes

Juvenal has the most entries, with Solomon, Shakespeare, Ali and the Nigerian politician Peter Obi after him. The older sourced material is blunt. Shaw’s Major Barbara (1905) calls poverty the greatest of evils and the worst of crimes, and Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village (1770) has a line addressed to poetry: “that found’st me poor at first, and keep’st me so.” Mark Twain gets in a joke in 1869, saying that a man is fast rising from affluence to poverty.

Three entries are flagged. “Poverty is the worst kind of violence” is credited to Gandhi as disputed. A passage on love having hands to help others is credited to Augustine, also disputed. “Widespread poverty and concentrated wealth cannot long endure side by side in a democracy” is credited to Thomas Jefferson and flagged misattributed.

Random quote on Poverty

Most quoted on poverty:

These victims are lured with the prospect of good jobs, education, or a chance to escape poverty

Francisca Oteng-Mensah

It is going to take a holistic approach for this to get contained because when you don’t address the issue of poverty. teenage pregnancies will continue rising.

Rachael Magoola

It is our firm belief as government that climate action must support our national imperatives to address poverty, inequality, and unemployment

Nonceba Mhlauli

Women are the face of poverty, gender-based violence and continuous marginalisation. However, the majority of registered voters are women.

Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster

Capitalism is the best thing that ever happened to feminism. Women can escape poverty—and bad husbands too.

Magatte Wade