Poor Quotes

I refuse to join with them in performing the miracle-I will not say trick-of liberating the oppressed with the gold of the tyrant, and raising the poor with the cash of the rich.

The forces in a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

The liar is a person who uses the valid designations, the words, in order to make something which is unreal appear to be real. He says, for example, "I am rich," when the proper designation for his condition would be "poor."

To regard states of distress in general as an objection, as something which must be abolished is the greatest nonsense on earth; having the most disastrous consequences, fatally stupid - almost as stupid as a wish to abolish bad weather - out of pity for the poor.

Far rather would I sit and sew beside my poor mother, for this thing is not of my condition. But I must go, and I must do this thing, because my Lord will have it so. Rather now than tomorrow, and tomorrow than the day after!

We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.

The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope has the duty, in Christ's name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them.

Our faith in Christ, who became poor, and was always close to the poor and the outcast, is the basis of our concern for the integral development of society's most neglected members.

The majority of people living on our planet profess to be believers. This should spur religions to dialogue among themselves for the sake of protecting nature, defending the poor, and building networks of respect and fraternity.

As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems. We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market.

The ideology of Marxism is wrong. But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don't feel offended. ... The promise was that when the glass was full, it would overflow, benefiting the poor. But what happens instead, is that when the glass is full, it magically gets bigger (and) nothing ever comes out for the poor.

Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate. ... To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues.

The Child who lies in the manger has the face of our brothers and sisters most in need, of the poor who are "a privileged part of this mystery; often they are the first to recognize God's presence in our midst".

Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of those who are poor and hungry.

The great biblical tradition enjoins on all peoples the duty to hear the voice of the poor. It bids us break the bonds of injustice and oppression which give rise to glaring, and indeed scandalous, social inequalities.

Even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn and the poor, are masterpieces of God's creation, made in his own image, destined to live for ever, and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect.

Only by becoming poor ourselves, by stripping away our complacency, will we be able to identify with the least of our brothers and sisters.

The land of the southern poor is rich and mostly unpolluted, yet access to ownership of goods and resources for meeting vital needs is inhibited by a system of commercial relations and ownership which is structurally perverse.

If I repeated some passages from the homilies of the Church Fathers, in the second or third century, about how we must treat the poor, some would accuse me of giving a Marxist homily.

Nobody respects a country with a poor army, but everybody respects a country with a good army. I raise my toast to the Finnish army.