“
We love being mentally strong, but we hate situations that allow us to put our mental strength to good use.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty, workday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the antique courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death: I pass indeed into their world.
”
”
Niccolò Machiavelli
“
Should happiness and success be hidden, in view of the misery and poverty around. Would it be a sign of selfishness and un-intellectual behavior, if we admit to a pursuit of happiness? Could it, on the contrary, not work out as a motivation and an incentive? When giving voice to our happiness, could it not be perceived as a positive challenge? Could happiness not be contagious and become a salutary infectious syndrome? A beneficial infection. ( "Happy days are back again" )
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
Poverty is not a character failing or a lack of motivation. Poverty is a shortage of money.
”
”
Barbara Ehrenreich
“
Why are...poor people more ready to share their goods than rich people? The answer is easy: The poor have little to lose; the rich have more to lose and they are more attached to their possessions. Poverty provides a deeper motivation for understanding your neighbors, welcoming others and attending to those who are suffering. I would go so far as to say that poverty helps you understand what happiness is, what serenity is in life.
”
”
Piero Gheddo
“
The poor themselves can create a poverty-free world. All we have to do is to free them from the chains that we have put around them!
”
”
Muhammad Yunus
“
The middle class were invented to give the poor hope; the poor, to make the rich feel special; the rich, to humble the middle class.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Talent isn't enough. You need motivation-and persistence, too: what Steinbeck called a blend of faith and arrogance. When you're young, plain old poverty can be enough, along with an insatiable hunger for recognition. You have to have that feeling of "I'll show them." If you don't have it, don't become a writer
”
”
Leon Uris
“
...one cannot but wonder how an environment can make people despair and sit idle and then, by changing the conditions, one can transform the same people into matchless performers.
”
”
Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty)
“
You can perhaps, in a number of circumstances, tell yourself that you can't have more than you have until you do better than you're doing, but by all means steer clear of its reverse, the creed of defeat, in saying that you can't do better than you're doing until you can have more than you have.
”
”
Criss Jami (Healology)
“
Neatness and cleanliness is not a function of how rich or poor you are but that of mentality and principle.
”
”
Ikechukwu Izuakor (Great Reflections on Success)
“
Like alcohol and poverty, a heartbreak has the power to make a man do something he wouldn’t normally do and to make a woman do someone she wouldn’t normally do.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Have and show motivation to do and learn. That's the key for a good career. Everything else is an extrapolation of that.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KISS Life "Life is what you make it")
“
Don't only learn from the rich and successful men, also learn from the poor and those that failed woefully, for in their failures lies the secret of success as well.
”
”
Ikechukwu Izuakor (Great Reflections on Success)
“
Never forget a man who weathered and rescued you from the storm just because you can see the shores.
”
”
Ikechukwu Izuakor (Great Reflections on Success)
“
Bill Gates wasn't born rich but he wasn't poor either even before he discovered Microsoft, he was just waiting for a connecting flight to the boulevards of greatness.
”
”
Ikechukwu Izuakor (Great Reflections on Success)
“
Our highest deeds come from helping the lowest people.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
The best the world has to offer comes from the best you have to give to others.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
Don't cheat the foundation of a house because you want to save for the roofing for at the end, you will have only roofed rubbles.
”
”
Ikechukwu Izuakor (Great Reflections on Success)
“
When you see your feet with no footwear, also see those with no feet.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
Pain teaches you more than pleasure. Failure teaches you more than success. Poverty teaches you more than prosperity. Adversity teaches you more than comfort.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
Grub Street turns out good things almost as often as Parnassus. For if a writer is hard up enough, if he’s far down enough (down where I have been and am rising from, I am really saying), he can’t afford self-doubt and he can’t let other people’s opinions, even a father’s, keep him from writing.
”
”
Wallace Stegner (Crossing to Safety)
“
Poverty is a mindset: It creates that sense of scarcity. You then become accustomed to it such that your life is hinged on protecting the scarce resources that you have. However, you can only create a mindset of abundance by investing what you have and not savings. Savings only becomes significant if it's done with a motive to invest.
”
”
Oscar Bimpong
“
When evening comes, I return home and enter my study; on the threshold I take off my workday clothes, covered with mud and dirt, and put on the garments of court and palace. Fitted out appropriately, I step inside the venerable courts of the ancients, where, solicitously received by them, I nourish myself on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born; where I am unashamed to converse with them and to question them about the motives for their actions, and they, out of their human kindness, answer me. And for four hours at a time I feel no boredom, I forget all my troubles, I do not dread poverty, and I am not terrified by death. I absorb myself into them completely.
”
”
Niccolò Machiavelli
“
To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place... It has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses, whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross-examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant. Now, there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewel was beaten - savagely, by someone who led exclusively with his left. And Tom Robinson now sits before you having taken the oath with the only good hand he possesses... his RIGHT. I have nothing but pity in my heart for the chief witness for the State. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance. But my pity does not extend so far as to her putting a man's life at stake, which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own guilt. Now I say "guilt," gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She's committed no crime - she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. But what was the evidence of her offense? Tom Robinson, a human being. She must put Tom Robinson away from her. Tom Robinson was to her a daily reminder of what she did. Now, what did she do? She tempted a *****. She was white, and she tempted a *****. She did something that, in our society, is unspeakable. She kissed a black man. Not an old uncle, but a strong, young ***** man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards. The witnesses for the State, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption... the evil assumption that all Negroes lie, all Negroes are basically immoral beings, all ***** men are not to be trusted around our women. An assumption that one associates with minds of their caliber, and which is, in itself, gentlemen, a lie, which I do not need to point out to you. And so, a quiet, humble, respectable *****, who has had the unmitigated TEMERITY to feel sorry for a white woman, has had to put his word against TWO white people's! The defendant is not guilty - but somebody in this courtroom is. Now, gentlemen, in this country, our courts are the great levelers. In our courts, all men are created equal. I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system - that's no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality! Now I am confident that you gentlemen will review, without passion, the evidence that you have heard, come to a decision and restore this man to his family. In the name of GOD, do your duty. In the name of God, believe... Tom Robinson
”
”
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
“
Statistics show that the nature of English crime is reverting to its oldest habits. In a country where so many desire status and wealth, petty annoyances can spark disproportionately violent behaviour. We become frustrated because we feel powerless, invisible, unheard. We crave celebrity, but that’s not easy to come by, so we settle for notoriety. Envy and bitterness drive a new breed of lawbreakers, replacing the old motives of poverty and the need for escape. But how do you solve crimes which no longer have traditional motives?
”
”
Christopher Fowler (Ten Second Staircase (Bryant & May, #4))
“
Ambition and poverty are powerful motivators...
”
”
Jennifer Donnelly (The Winter Rose (The Tea Rose, #2))
“
If your expenditure brings you poverty, then you may call yourself a poor but the world will call you a fool.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
I profoundly believer, as Grammen's experience over twenty years has shown, that personal gains is not the only possible fuel for free enterprise. Social goals can replace greed as a powerful motivational force. Social-consciousness-driven enterprises can be formidable competitors for the greed-based enterprises. I believe that if we play our cards right, social-consciousness-driven enterprises can do very well in the marketplace.
”
”
Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty)
“
Our schools will not improve if we continue to focus only on reading and mathematics while ignoring the other studies that are essential elements of a good education. Schools that expect nothing more of their students than mastery of basic skills will not produce graduates who are ready for college or the modern workplace.
***
Our schools will not improve if we value only what tests measure. The tests we have now provide useful information about students' progress in reading and mathematics, but they cannot measure what matters most in education....What is tested may ultimately be less important that what is untested...
***
Our schools will not improve if we continue to close neighborhood schools in the name of reform. Neighborhood schools are often the anchors of their communities, a steady presence that helps to cement the bond of community among neighbors.
***
Our schools cannot improve if charter schools siphon away the most motivated students and their families in the poorest communities from the regular public schools.
***
Our schools will not improve if we continue to drive away experienced principals and replace them with neophytes who have taken a leadership training course but have little or no experience as teachers.
***
Our schools cannot be improved if we ignore the disadvantages associated with poverty that affect children's ability to learn. Children who have grown up in poverty need extra resources, including preschool and medical care.
”
”
Diane Ravitch (The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education)
“
The poor can dream. The weak can hope. The helpless can strive. The powerless can rise.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
Don't sell the warmer for an air conditioner just because its summer, for in winter, you will have to do the reverse.
”
”
Ikechukwu Izuakor (Great Reflections on Success)
“
One of the origins of poverty is lack of respect for time.
”
”
Daniel Anikor
“
He seems so frivolous and so careless, but he gives money to beggars, not frivolously or carelessly, but because he believes in giving money to beggars, and giving it to them “where they stand”.
He says he knows perfectly well all the arguments against giving money to beggars. But he finds those to be precisely the arguments for giving money to them. If beggars are lazy or deceptive or wanting a drink, he knows only too well his own lack of motivation, his own dishonesty, his own thirst.
He doesn’t believe in “scientific charity” because that is too easy, as easy as writing a check. He believes in “promiscuous charity” because that is really difficult. “It means the most dark and terrible of all human actions—talking to a man. In fact, I know of nothing more difficult than really talking to the poor men we meet.” (pp. 13-14)
”
”
Dale Ahlquist (Common Sense 101: Lessons from Chesterton)
“
Dear Fathers of the Fatherless Children, It is a shame that single mothers are living in poverty. There shouldn’t be a reason why our children have to suffer because of the “lack of” not having what they need. Each day, a single mother has to make a decision about what has to be sacrificed to get through the day and/or maybe the month. Many times, a single mother has to play “catch up” on bills because her income isn’t enough to pay all the bills and take care of her responsibilities.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (Dear fathers of the fatherless children)
“
In the United States I saw how the market liberates the individual and allows people to be free to make personal choices. But the biggest drawback was that the market always pushes things to the side of the powerful. I thought the poor should be able to take advantage of the system in order to improve their lot.
Grameen is a private-sector self-help bank, and as its members gain personal wealth they acquire water-pumps, latrines, housing, education, access to health care, and so on.
Another way to achieve this is to let abusiness earn profit that is then txed by the government, and the tax can be used to provide services to the poor. But in practice it never works that way. In real life, taxes only pay for a government bureaucracy that collects the tax and provides little or nothing to the poor. And since most government bureaucracies are not profit motivated, they have little incentive to increase their efficiency. In fact, they have a disincentive: governments often cannot cut social services without a public outcry, so the behemoth continues, blind and inefficient, year after year.
”
”
Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty)
“
People fail to realize that living on the other side of the tracks in poverty isn’t what it appears to be. I didn’t make the decision to be poor. I am one of the hardest-working people I know. As I got older, I realized many people do not choose to live in poverty. The simple fact is that once you are living in it, it is hard to get out—because people are not willing to give you a chance.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (The Stars Choose Our Lovers)
“
There are crimes of which the motive is want; and for these Phaleas expects to find a cure in the equalization of property, which will take away from a man the temptation to be a highwayman, because he is hungry or cold. But want is not the sole incentive to crime; men also wish to enjoy themselves and not to be in a state of desire- they wish to cure some desire, going beyond the necessities of life, which preys upon them; nay, this is not the only reason- they may desire superfluities in order to enjoy pleasures unaccompanied with pain, and therefore they commit crimes.
”
”
Aristotle (Politics)
“
When we examine , not the language of propaganda, but the witness of the combatants themselves, religion does not occupy the first place. Their motivations are more often secular, they mention their sympathy for a population reduced to poverty, the victims of the whim of ruling classes that live in luxury and corruption- rulers able to maintain themselves in power thanks only to the support of the American government ( as in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt). They speak of the members of their families or their local communities who have suffered or died by the fault of these governments ( and thus of their protectors); and they want to avenge them. The thirst for vengeance did not wait for Islam to appear in the world, and the appeal to the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is universal.
”
”
Tzvetan Todorov
“
There are three impossibilities in life: God cannot lie, God cannot change and finally, I cannot be a poor man.
”
”
Ikechukwu Izuakor (Great Reflections on Success)
“
Poverty is a powerful motivator
”
”
David Shamala
“
We are strengthening by different experiences in life;
Sad times, happy moments.
Poverty, riches.
Failure, success.
Troubles, good times.
Losing, winning.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
“
Today’s generation is laughing at people who are suffering , poor and misfortune. You post your picture starving. They turn it into a meme.
Then expect to be blessed with good health and wealth.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
[C]apitalism is clearly inadequate as any kind of social ideal, since it is only motivated by profit, without any ethical principle guiding it. Unbridled capitalism can involve terrible exploitation of the weak. Thus we need to adopt an approach to economic justice which respects the dynamism of capitalism while combining it with a concern for the less fortunate. Once again, I think microfinance offers a sustainable and responsive line of approach to issues of poverty alleviation and development, an approach which could avoid the excesses of capitalism on the one hand and the inefficiency of excessive state control on the other.
”
”
Dalai Lama XIV (Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World)
“
I felt that the metal of my spirit, like a bar of iron that is softened and bent by a persistent flame, was being gradually softened and bent by the troubles that oppressed it. In spite of myself, I was conscious of a feeling of envy for those who did not suffer from such troubles, for the wealthy and the privileged; and this envy, I observed, was accompanied—still against my will—by a feeling of bitterness towards them, which, in turn, did not limit its aim to particular persons or situations, but, as if by an uncontrollable bias, tended to assume the general, abstract character of a whole conception of life. In fact, during those difficult days, I came very gradually to feel that my irritation and my intolerance of poverty were turning into a revolt against injustice, and not only against the injustice which struck at me personally but the injustice from which so many others like me suffered. I was quite aware of this almost imperceptible transformation of my subjective resentments into objective reflections and states of mind, owing to the bent of my thoughts which led always and irresistibly in the same direction: owing also to my conversation, which, without my intending it, alway harped upon the same subject. I also noticed in myself a growing sympathy for those political parties which proclaimed their struggle against the evils and infamies of the society to which, in the end I had attributed the troubles that beset me—a society which, as I thought, in reference to myself, allowed its best sons to languish and protected its worst ones. Usually, and in the simpler, less cultivated people, this process occurs without their knowing it, in the dark depths of consciousness where, by a kind of mysterious alchemy, egoism is transmuted into altruism, hatred into love, fear into courage; but to me, accustomed as I was to observing and studying myself, the whole thing was clear and visible, as though I were watching it happen in someone else; and yet I was aware the whole time that I was being swayed by material subjective factors, that I was transforming purely personal motives into universal reasons.
”
”
Alberto Moravia (Contempt)
“
Poor means when we lack things in our lives. There are two types of poverty. ...those that need food and shelter and those that need God in their lives. We are called to service to help both group of people as much as we can.
”
”
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
I use “anticapitalist” because conservative defenders of capitalism regularly say their liberal and socialist opponents are against capitalism. They say efforts to provide a safety net for all people are “anticapitalist.” They say attempts to prevent monopolies are “anticapitalist.” They say efforts that strengthen weak unions and weaken exploitative owners are “anticapitalist.” They say plans to normalize worker ownership and regulations protecting consumers, workers, and environments from big business are “anticapitalist.” They say laws taxing the richest more than the middle class, redistributing pilfered wealth, and guaranteeing basic incomes are “anticapitalist.” They say wars to end poverty are “anticapitalist.” They say campaigns to remove the profit motive from essential life sectors like education, healthcare, utilities, mass media, and incarceration are “anticapitalist.”
In doing so, these conservative defenders are defining capitalism. They define capitalism as the freedom to exploit people into economic ruin; the freedom to assassinate unions; the freedom to prey on unprotected consumers, workers, and environments; the freedom to value quarterly profits over climate change; the freedom to undermine small businesses and cushion corporations; the freedom from competition; the freedom not to pay taxes; the freedom to heave the tax burden onto the middle and lower classes; the freedom to commodify everything and everyone; the freedom to keep poor people poor and middle-income people struggling to stay middle income, and make rich people richer. The history of capitalism—of world warring, classing, slave trading, enslaving, colonizing, depressing wages, and dispossessing land and labor and resources and rights—bears out the conservative definition of capitalism.
”
”
Ibram X. Kendi (How to Be an Antiracist)
“
She was motivated by something else: impatience. To Aimee poverty was one of the world’s sloppy errors, one among many, which might be easily corrected if only people would bring to the problem the focus she brought to everything.
”
”
Zadie Smith (Swing Time)
“
But still, it was not the desire to ‘write’ that was his real motive. To get out of the money-world—that was what he wanted. Vaguely he looked forward to some kind of moneyless, anchorite existence. He had a feeling that if you genuinely despise money you can keep going somehow, like the birds of the air. He forgot that the birds of the air don’t pay room-rent. The poet starving in a garret—but starving, somehow, not uncomfortably—that was his vision of himself.
The next seven months were devastating. They scared him and almost broke his spirit. He learned what it means to live for weeks on end on bread and margarine, to try to ‘write’ when you are half starved, to pawn your clothes, to sneak trembling up the stairs when you owe three weeks’ rent and your landlady is listening for you. Moreover, in those seven months he wrote practically nothing. The first effect of poverty is that it kills thought. He grasped, as though it were a new discovery, that you do not escape from money merely by being moneyless. On the contrary, you are the hopeless slave of money until you have enough of it to live on—a ‘competence’, as the beastly middle-class phrase goes.
”
”
George Orwell (Keep the Aspidistra Flying)
“
Growing up in poverty, I learned some hard lessons about life. These lessons were taught to me not by my family but rather by system “helpers.” I learned that being poor offended people. I learned people had rage and anger toward me and others like me. I learned that people thought being poor equated to lacking intelligence, creativity, motivation and desire. I learned that people felt sorry for me. In the process, I also learned to be weary (and wary) of helpers. (p. 46)
”
”
Paul C. Gorski (Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies for Erasing the Opportunity Gap (Multicultural Education Series))
“
the rich seem to believe that for the poor and struggling, only the prospects of continued poverty and struggle could possibly motivate them to hard work and success. If people are poor, then they must not be poor enough, on this rendering, for if they were, surely they would have gotten sufficiently motivated so as to not be poor any more. Make no mistake; this is the thinking of the sadist, akin to those who say we should make prisons as awful as possible so as to deter people from committing crime.
”
”
Tim Wise (Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America (City Lights Open Media))
“
The more the world commits to programs for poverty and education, the greater the gap for those with intellectual disabilities. That’s because money goes where results are quick and quantifiable, which is not likely for people with intellectual disabilities.
”
”
LAWRENCE DOWNES
“
Why were self-imposed abortions and reluctant acts of infanticide such common occurrences during slavery? Not because Black women had discovered solutions to their predicament, but rather because they were desperate. Abortions and infanticides were acts of desperation, motivated not by the biological birth process but by the oppressive conditions of slavery. Most of these women, no doubt, would have expressed their deepest resentment had someone hailed their abortions as a stepping stone toward freedom.
During the early abortion rights campaign it was too frequently assumed that legal abortions provided a viable alternative to the myriad problems posed by poverty. As if having fewer children could create more jobs, higher wages, better schools, etc., etc. This assumption reflected the tendency to blur the distinction between abortion rights and the general advocacy of abortions. The campaign often failed to provide a voice for women who wanted the right to legal abortions while deploring the social conditions that prohibited them from bearing more children.
”
”
Angela Y. Davis (Women, Race & Class)
“
Too often we don’t call out a wrong or expect ourselves or others to act with routine integrity, excellence, or love. There has been a worldwide failure in leadership, birthing an apathetic populace, unjustifiable poverty, unconscionable greed, and a globe ravaged and booby-trapped by war.
”
”
Brendon Burchard (The Motivation Manifesto: 9 Declarations to Claim Your Personal Power)
“
Increasingly, obesity and hunger are two points on a continuum of poverty. But the stuffed and the starved are also linked through the chains of production that bring food from fields to our plate. Guided by the profit motive, food corporations shape and constrain how we eat, and how we think about food.
”
”
Raj Patel (Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System - Revised and Updated)
“
I have no aspiration here to reclaim mystery and paradox from whatever territory they might inhabit, for there is, indeed, often a killing in a kiss, a mercy in the slap that heats your face . . . There is, nevertheless, a particular poverty in those alloplasts who, addressing tragedy, seek to subdistinguish motives beyond those we have best, because nearest, at hand, and so it is with love and hate--emotions upon whose necks, whether wrung or wreathed, may be found the oldest fingerprints of man. A simple truth intrudes: the basic instincts of every man to every man are known. But who knows when or where or how? For the answers to such questions, summon Augurello, your personal jurisconsult and theological wiseacre, to teach you about primal reality and then to dispel those complexities and cabals you crouch behind in this sad, psychiatric century you call your own. It is the anti-labyrinths of the world that scare. Here is a story for you. Your chair.
”
”
Alexander Theroux (Darconville's Cat)
“
I can't imagine what kind of poverty would motivate a person to forget themselves and everyone they loved so their families could get a monthly stipend. I may have lived on Abnegation bread and vegetables for most of my life, with nothing to spare, but I was never that desperate. Their situation must have been much worse than anything I saw in the city. - Tris
”
”
Veronica Roth (Allegiant (Divergent, #3))
“
I have nothing but pity in my heart for the chief witness for the state, but my pity does not extend so far as to her putting a man’s life at stake, which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own guilt.
“I say guilt, gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance, but I cannot pity her: she is white. She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it. She persisted, and her subsequent reaction is something that all of us have known at one time or another. She did something every child has done—she tried to put the evidence of her offense away from her. But in this case she was no child hiding stolen contraband: she struck out at her victim—of necessity she must put him away from her—he must be removed from her presence, from this world. She must destroy the evidence of her offense.
”
”
Harper Lee
“
I guess basically one wants to feel that one’s life has amounted to more than just consuming products and generating garbage. I think that one likes to look back and say that one’s done the best one can to make this a better place for others. You can look at it from this point of view: What greater motivation can there be than doing whatever one possibly can to reduce pain and suffering?
”
”
Peter Singer (The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty)
“
THEY SAY "MOST RELATIONSHIPS FAIL DUE TO THE POVERTY." I COMPLETELY DISAGREE WITH THAT.I HAVE SEEN COUPLES WHO COME FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND THEY STARTED THEIR LIFE FROM NOTHING, THEY DON'T EVEN SPOKE ENGLISH AND TODAY THEY LIVE BETTER LIFE THAN MANY COUPLES I KNOW WHO ARE BORN IN USA. I THINK MOST RELATIONSHIPS FAIL DUE TO THE LACK OF MOTIVATION, LACK OF COMMUNICATION AND LACK OF GOALS.
”
”
Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
Perhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas, Moore concludes with a sonorous reading of some words from George Orwell. The words are taken from 1984 and consist of a third-person analysis of a hypothetical, endless and contrived war between three superpowers. The clear intention, as clumsily excerpted like this (...), is to suggest that there is no moral distinction between the United States, the Taliban and the Ba'ath Party, and that the war against jihad is about nothing. If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following:
The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States…
And that's just from Orwell's Notes on Nationalism in May 1945. A short word of advice: In general, it's highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It's also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays)
“
The aid program that I am suggesting must not be used by the wealthy nations as a surreptitious means to control the poor nations. Such an approach would lead to a new form of paternalism and a neocolonialism which no self-respecting nation could accept. Ultimately, foreign aid programs must be motivated by a compassionate and committed effort to wipe poverty, ignorance and disease from the face of the earth. Money devoid of genuine empathy is like salt devoid of savor, good for nothing except to be trodden under foot of men.
The West must enter into the program with humility and penitence and a sober realization that everything will not always “go our way.” It cannot be forgotten that the Western powers were but yesterday the colonial masters. The house of the West is far from in order, and its hands are far from clean.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?)
“
THE MAN OF TRUTH never departs from the divine principles which he has espoused. He may be threatened with sickness, poverty, pain, loss of friends and position, yea, even with immediate death, yet he does not desert the principles which he knows to be eternally true. To him, there is one thing more grievous, more to be feared and shunned than all the above evils put together, and that is—the desertion of principle.
”
”
James Allen (Light on Life’s Difficulties: James Allen's Wisdom for Overcoming Life's Challenges (Best Motivational Books for Personal Development (Design Your Life)))
“
Fifteen years ago, a business manager from the United States came to Plum Village to visit me. His conscience was troubled because he was the head of a firm that designed atomic bombs. I listened as he expressed his concerns. I knew if I advised him to quit his job, another person would only replace him. If he were to quit, he might help himself, but he would not help his company, society, or country. I urged him to remain the director of his firm, to bring mindfulness into his daily work, and to use his position to communicate his concerns and doubts about the production of atomic bombs.
In the Sutra on Happiness, the Buddha says it is great fortune to have an occupation that allows us to be happy, to help others, and to generate compassion and understanding in this world. Those in the helping professions have occupations that give them this wonderful opportunity. Yet many social workers, physicians, and therapists work in a way that does not cultivate their compassion, instead doing their job only to earn money. If the bomb designer practises and does his work with mindfulness, his job can still nourish his compassion and in some way allow him to help others. He can still influence his government and fellow citizens by bringing greater awareness to the situation. He can give the whole nation an opportunity to question the necessity of bomb production.
Many people who are wealthy, powerful, and important in business, politics, and entertainment are not happy. They are seeking empty things - wealth, fame, power, sex - and in the process they are destroying themselves and those around them. In Plum Village, we have organised retreats for businesspeople. We see that they have many problems and suffer just as others do, sometimes even more. We see that their wealth allows them to live in comfortable conditions, yet they still suffer a great deal.
Some businesspeople, even those who have persuaded themselves that their work is very important, feel empty in their occupation. They provide employment to many people in their factories, newspapers, insurance firms, and supermarket chains, yet their financial success is an empty happiness because it is not motivated by understanding or compassion. Caught up in their small world of profit and loss, they are unaware of the suffering and poverty in the world. When we are not int ouch with this larger reality, we will lack the compassion we need to nourish and guide us to happiness.
Once you begin to realise your interconnectedness with others, your interbeing, you begin to see how your actions affect you and all other life. You begin to question your way of living, to look with new eyes at the quality of your relationships and the way you work. You begin to see, 'I have to earn a living, yes, but I want to earn a living mindfully. I want to try to select a vocation not harmful to others and to the natural world, one that does not misuse resources.'
Entire companies can also adopt this way of thinking. Companies have the right to pursue economic growth, but not at the expense of other life. They should respect the life and integrity of people, animals, plants and minerals. Do not invest your time or money in companies that deprive others of their lives, that operate in a way that exploits people or animals, and destroys nature.
Businesspeople who visit Plum Village often find that getting in touch with the suffering of others and cultivating understanding brings them happiness. They practise like Anathapindika, a successful businessman who lived at the time of the Buddha, who with the practise of mindfulness throughout his life did everything he could to help the poor and sick people in his homeland.
”
”
Thich Nhat Hanh (Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World)
“
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
”
”
Benjamin Franklin (Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 1 of 2] With His Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical)
“
(...) it was in this extreme poverty that I felt my energy return and that I said to myself, in any event I’ll recover from it, I’ll pick up my pencil that I put down in my great discouragement and I’ll get back to drawing, and from then on, it seems to me, everything has changed for me, and now I’m on my way and my pencil has become somewhat obedient and seems to become more so day by day. It was poverty, too long and too severe, that had discouraged me to the point where I could no longer do anything.
”
”
Vincent van Gogh
“
The matter of sedition is of two kinds: much poverty and much discontentment....The causes and motives of sedition are, innovation in religion; taxes; alteration of laws and customs; breaking of privileges; general oppression; advancement of unworthy persons, strangers; dearths; disbanded soldiers; factions grown desperate; and whatsoever in offending people joineth them in a common cause.' The cue of every leader, of course, is to divide his enemies and to unite his friends. 'Generally, the dividing and breaking of all factions...that are adverse to the state, and setting them at a distance, or at least distrust, among themselves, is not one of the worst remedies; for it is a desperate case, if those that hold with the proceeding of the state be full of discord and faction, and those that are against it be entire and united.' A better recipe for the avoidance of revolutions is an equitable distribution of wealth: 'Money is like muck, not good unless it be spread.' But this does not mean socialism, or even democracy; Bacon distrusts the people, who were in his day quite without access to education; 'the lowest of all flatteries is the flattery of the common people;' and 'Phocion took it right, who, being applauded by the multitude, asked, What had he done amiss?' What Bacon wants is first a yeomanry of owning farmers; then an aristocracy for administration; and above all a philosopher-king. 'It is almost without instance that any government was unprosperous under learned governors.' He mentions Seneca, Antonius Pius and Aurelius; it was his hope that to their names posterity would add his own.
”
”
Will Durant (The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers)
“
When evening comes, I return home (from the local tavern) and go into my study. On threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty, workaday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the courts of ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actors, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more of death; I pass indeed into their world.
”
”
Niccolò Machiavelli
“
A work of art, if it is to be of spiritual import, need not be a "work of genius"; the authenticity of sacred art is guaranteed by its prototypes. A certain monotony is in any case inseparable from traditional methods; amid all the gaiety and pageantry that are the privilege of art, this monotony safeguards spiritual poverty - the non-attachment of the "poor in spirit" (Matt. 5:3) - and prevents individual genius from foundering in some sorts of hybrid monomania; genius is as it were absorbed by the collective style, with its norm derived from the universal. It is by the qualitative interpretations, to whatever degree, of the sacred models that the genius of the artist shows itself in a particular art; that is to say: instead of squandering itself in "breadth", it is refined and developed in "depth". One need only to think of an art such that of the ancient Egypt to see clearly how severity of style can itself lead to extreme perfection.
This allows us to understand how, at the time of the Renaissance, artistic geniuses suddenly sprang up almost everywhere, and with an overflowing vitality. The phenomenon is analogous to what happens in the soul of one who abandons a spiritual discipline. Psychic tendencies that have been kept in the background suddenly come to the fore, accompanied by a glittering riot of new sensations with the compulsive attaction of as yet unexhausted possibilities; but they lose their fascination as soon as the initial pressure of the soul is relaxed. Nevertheless, the emancipation of the "ego" being thenceforth the dominant motive, individualistic expansivity will continue to assert itself: it will conquer new planes, relatively lower than the first, the difference in psychic"levels" acting as the source of potential energy. This is the whole secret of the Promethean urge of the Renaissance.
”
”
Titus Burckhardt (The Foundations of Christian Art (Sacred Art in Tradition Series))
“
For me, it always comes back to children. The one core belief I’ve articulated more often and more fervently than any other in all my years in public life is that every child deserves the chance to live up to his or her God-given potential. I’ve said that line so many times, I’ve lost count. But the idea remains as powerful and motivating for me as ever. I continue to believe that a society should be judged by how we treat the most vulnerable among us, especially children, and that the measure of our success should be how many kids climb out of poverty, get a good education, and receive the love and support they deserve.
”
”
Hillary Rodham Clinton (What Happened)
“
It’s worth stressing that wealth and success are never the top motivators for geniuses. Most geniuses have ended up in poverty, obscurity and failure. Genius has its price and that price is normally the total blank incomprehension, or even active contempt, of the world. A genius is invariably an outsider, rebel and revolutionary. All new ideas threaten the Old Order, and the Old Order is never interested in losing its power and prestige. The currently rich and successful do not want to open the doors to their own replacements. They’re not stupid. Geniuses never get along with the Old Order. After all, geniuses are here precisely to change the Old Ways.
”
”
David Sinclair (Transcendental Magic: The Rise of the New Magicians)
“
To be sure, we can buy art, but we sense that if it is mere commodity, we pay too much; and if it is true art, we pay infinitely too little. Similarly, we can buy sex but not love; we can buy calories but not real nourishment. Today we suffer a poverty of immesurable things, priceless things; a poverty of the things that money cannot buy and a surfeit of the things it can (though this surfeit is so unequally distributed that many suffer a poverty of those things, too).
Just as money homogenizes the things it touches, so also does it homogenize and depersonalize its users: "It facilitates the kind of commercial exchange that is disembedded from all other relations." In other words, people become mere parties to a transaction. In contrast to the diverse motivations that characterize the giving and receiving of gifts, in a pure financial transaction we are all identical: we all want to get the best deal.
The homegeneity among human beings that is an effect of money is assumed by economics to be a cause. The whole story of money's evolution from barter assumes that it is fundamental human nature to want to maximize self-interest. In this, human beings are assumed to be identical. When there is no standard of value, different humans want different things. When money is exchangeable for any thing, then all people want the same thing: money.
”
”
Charles Eisenstein (Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition)
“
Social entrepreneurs are among the most dynamic engines of the cooperative movement. Where corporate moguls work for personal enrichment, these civic-minded business leaders work for the cooperative equivalent, which is a desire to generate community self-reliance, abolish poverty, and enhance community economic well-being by improving housing, food, transportation, energy, health, finance, and a host of other products and services. Their motivations are not selfishly financial; they are far deeper, rooted in both the human spirit and the pervasive sense of community that human beings have striven to express throughout history. As the economist Jean Monnet once said, “Without community, there is crisis.
”
”
Ralph Nader (The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future)
“
The key trait of a Sperm Pirate is that she is not driven by desperation. Escaping poverty or hardship is not her motive. She usually has a good education and access to the same opportunities as the man she tries to trap. However, she understands that it is more efficient to enjoy a lavish lifestyle through the sweat of another’s labour. But the Sperm Pirate is acutely aware that the infatuation of a hormonal man has a brief shelf life. This poor collateral must be cashed in before it expires. A pregnancy is the best way to convert this volatile resource into a stable asset. Babies are reliable insurance policies. They create legal obligations for financial support, even when the sweet milk of passion turns sour.
”
”
Taona Dumisani Chiveneko (The Hangman's Replacement: Sprout of Disruption)
“
Starting with Theodor Adorno in the 1950s, people have suggested that lower intelligence predicts adherence to conservative ideology. Some but not all studies since then have supported this conclusion. More consistent has been a link between lower intelligence and a subtype of conservatism, namely right-wing authoritarianism (RWA, a fondness for hierarchy). ... The standard, convincing explanation for the link is that RWA provides simple answers, ideal for people with poor abstract reasoning skills.
The literature has two broad themes. One is that rightists are relatively uncomfortable with ambiguity; ... . The other is that leftists, well, think harder, have a greater capacity for what the political scientist Philip Tetlock of the University of Pennsylvania calls "integrative complexity".
In one study, conservatives and liberals, when asked about the causes of poverty, both tended toward personal attributions (“They’re poor because they’re lazy”). But only if they had to make snap judgments. Give people more time, and liberals shifted toward situational explanations (“Wait, things are stacked against the poor”). In other words, conservatives start gut and stay gut; liberals go from gut to head. ...
Why? Some have suggested it’s a greater respect for thinking, which readily becomes an unhelpful tautology. Linda Skitka of the University of Illinois emphasizes how the personal attributions of snap judgments readily feel dissonant to liberals, at odds with their principles; thus they are motivated to think their way to a more consonant view. In contrast, even with more time, conservatives don’t become more situational, because there’s no dissonance.
”
”
Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
“
I hear all the time that peace activists are naive, that it is impossible to talk to extremists--people who have no regard for the lives of innocents... But in my experience in conflict zones the world over, there are always people to talk to. From members of Hamas in Gaza to Baathists under Saddam's Iraq to the Taliban in Afganistan to government officials in Iran, it is a major blunder to label all our perceived enemies as extremists incapable of rational conversation. People join militant groups for many reasons--religious, family, social pressure, revenge for some wrong they experienced, political ideology, poverty. With such diversity of motives, the are always some people who can be enticed to talk about peace. Our goal should be to seek them out, to strengthen the moderates. Unfortunately, our actions have only served to embolden the extremists.
”
”
Medea Benjamin (Drone Warfare: Killing By Remote Control)
“
because it was guilt that motivated her. She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance, but I cannot pity her: she is white. She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it. She persisted, as her subsequent reaction is something that all of us have known at one time or another. She did something every child has done--she tried to put the evidence of her offense away from her. But in this case she was no child hiding stolen contraband: she struck out at her victim--of necessity she must put him away from her--he must be removed from her presence, from this world. She must destroy the evidence of her offense.
”
”
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
“
If we acknowledge that housing is a basic right of all Americans, then we must think differently about another right: the right to make as much money as possible by providing families with housing- and especially to profit excessively from the less fortunate. Since the founding of this country, a long line of American visionaries have called for a more balanced relationship, one that protects people from the profit motive, "not to destroy individualism," in Franklin D. Roosevelt's words, "but to protect it." Child labor laws, the minimum wage, workplace safety regulations, and other protections we now take for granted came about when we chose to place the well-being of people above money. There are losers and winners. There are losers because there are winners. "Every condition exists," Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote, "simply because someone profits by its existence. This economic exploitation is crystallized in the slum.
”
”
Matthew Desmond (Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City)
“
If I am not hungry I do not need to eat, if I am invaluable I do not need to be valued, if I am not seeking, I do not need to find. Therefore, if I do not need wealth, I am prosperous, if I do not need to be seen, I am sought after, if I do not need to be loved, I am love, if I do not need admiration, I am able to admire, if I do not need success, I am successful, if I do not need time, I am timeless, if I do not need to know, then I know everything. So it is, if I know death, poverty, hate, failure and time as words, I then know their opposites, and if I know their opposites I know that both sides hold only the weight that I give them, and in turn both are weightless; they hold no weight to me, or in other words, they are unimportant and illusory. So then if I do not need an illusion, I am free, and if I do not need freedom, I exist, and if I exist, I am, and if I am, I am. That is the truth. That is the word. That is nonduality.
”
”
Michael Stagnitta
“
Absolute solution comes from absolute problem, ultimate certainty comes from ultimate uncertainty, total acceptance comes from total rejection, complete perfection comes from complete flaw, ample richness comes from ample poverty, foolproof protection comes from unyielding danger and unlimited liberty comes from unlimited restriction. Each one is coincident of another as dark is coincident of light.
To such a degree, never try to escape from them.Rather bravely and wisely engage to sort them out . You know, these wonderful stuffs fetch for its tail all wonderful-reverse-stuffs, making your life tested and dignified.
Never give up rather wake-up, have a great shower, eat, dress up and join in the struggle. Neither dishearten yourself nor give ears to others' words, just keep faith on you, believe your own intuition and keep the struggle going...
I am damn sure, Success, it must lay its head eventually beneath your noble feet as a flunky of order execution and will crown you as the king."
Many Cheers from Lord Robin
”
”
Lord Robin
“
A drone is often preferred for missions that are too "dull, dirty, or dangerous" for manned aircraft.”
PROLOGUE
The graffiti was in Spanish, neon colors highlighting the varicose cracks in the wall. It smelled of urine and pot. The front door was metal with four bolt locks and the windows were frosted glass, embedded with chicken wire. They swung out and up like big fake eye-lashes held up with a notched adjustment bar.
This was a factory building on the near west side of Cleveland in an industrial area on the Cuyahoga River known in Ohio as The Flats.
First a sweatshop garment factory, then a warehouse for imported cheeses then a crack den for teenage potheads. It was now headquarters for Magic Slim, the only pimp in Cleveland with his own film studio and training facility.
Her name was Cosita, she was eighteen looking like fourteen. One of nine children from El Chorillo. a dangerous poverty stricken barrio on the outskirts of Panama City. Her brother, Javier, had been snatched from the streets six months ago, he was thirteen and beautiful.
Cosita had a high school education but earned here degree on the streets of Panama.
Interpol, the world's largest international police organization, had recruited Cosita at seventeen. She was smart, street savvy, motivated and very pretty. Just what Interpol was looking for.
Cosita would become a Drone!
”
”
Nick Hahn
“
THOUGHTS WHICH ARE MIXED WITH ANY OF THE FEELINGS OF EMOTIONS, CONSTITUTE A "MAGNETIC" FORCE WHICH ATTRACTS, FROM THE VIBRATIONS OF THE ETHER, OTHER SIMILAR, OR RELATED THOUGHTS. A thought thus "magnetized" with emotion may be compared to a seed which, when planted in fertile soil, germinates, grows, and multiplies itself over and over again, until that which was originally one small seed, becomes countless millions of seeds of the SAME BRAND! The ether is a great cosmic mass of eternal forces of vibration. It is made up of both destructive vibrations and constructive vibrations. It carries, at all times, vibrations of fear, poverty, disease, failure, misery; and vibrations of prosperity, health, success, and happiness, just as surely as it carries the sound of hundreds of orchestrations of music, and hundreds of human voices, all of which maintain their own individuality, and means of identification, through the medium of radio. From the great storehouse of the ether, the human mind is constantly attracting vibrations which harmonize with that which DOMINATES the human mind. Any thought, idea, plan, or purpose which one holds in one's mind attracts, from the vibrations of the ether, a host of its relatives, adds these "relatives" to its own force, and grows until it becomes the dominating, MOTIVATING MASTER of the individual in whose mind it has been housed.
”
”
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich [Illustrated & Annotated])
“
Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
“
This revolution of values must go beyond traditional capitalism and Communism. We must honestly admit that capitalism has often left a gulf between superfluous wealth and abject poverty, has created conditions permitting necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few, and has encourage smallhearted men to become cold and conscienceless so that, like Dives before Lazarus, they are unmoved by suffering, poverty-stricken humanity. The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that inspire men to be more I-centered than thou-centered. Equally, Communism reduces men to a cog in the wheel of the state. The Communist may object, saying that in Marxian theory the state is an “interim reality” that will “wither away” when the classless society emerges. True—in theory; but it is also true that, while the state lasts, it is an end in itself. Man is a means to that end. He has no inalienable rights. His only rights are derived from, and conferred by, the state. Under such a system the fountain of freedom runs dry. Restricted are man’s liberties of press and assembly, his freedom to vote and his freedom to listen and to read.
Truth is found neither in traditional capitalism nor in classical Communism. Each represents a partial truth. Capitalism fails to see the truth in collectivism. Communism fails to see the truth in individualism. Capitalism fails to realize that life is social. Communism fails to realize that life is personal. The good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the antithesis of Communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?)
“
From working with black males for more than a dozen years, I can say with confidence that many black males are both lazy and irresponsible. This view isn't popular with problem profiteers who blame all black woes upon white racism or poverty, but it is true, nonetheless.
The young men I work with represent just the tip of the iceberg of a far larger laziness problem within the black male population. The typical black male I work with has no work ethic, has little sense of direction in his life, is hostile toward whites and women, has an attitude of entitlement, and has an amoral outlook on life.
He has no strong male role model in his life to teach him the value of hard work, patience, self-control, and character. He is emotionally adrift and is nearly illiterate-either because he dropped out of school or because he's just not motivated enough to learn.
Many of the black males I've worked with have had a "don't give a damn" attitude toward work and life and believe that "white America" owes them a living. They have no shame about going on welfare because they believe whites owe them for past discrimination and slavery. This absurd thinking results in a lifetime of laziness and blaming, while taxpayers pick up the tab for individuals who lack character and a strong work ethic.
Frequently, blacks who attempt to enter the workforce often become problems for their employers. This is because they also have an entitlement mentality that puts little emphasis on working hard to get ahead. They expect to be paid for doing little work, often show up late, and have bad attitudes while on the job. They're so sensitized to
"racism" that they feel abused by every slight, no matter if it's intentional, unconscious, or even based in reality.
”
”
Jesse Lee Peterson (Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America)
“
To every one Jesus has left a work to do, there is no one who can plead that he is excused. Every Christian is to be a worker with Christ; but those to whom he has intrusted large means and abilities have the greater responsibilities. … The Master has given directions, “Occupy till I come.” He is the great proprietor, and has a right to investigate every transaction, and approve or condemn; he has a right to rebuke, to encourage, to counsel, or to expel. The Lord’s work requires careful thought and the highest intellect. He will not inquire how successful you have been in gathering means to hoard, or that you may excel your neighbors in property, and gather attention to yourself while excluding God from your hearts and homes. He will inquire, What have you done to advance my cause with the talents I lent you? What have you done for me in the person of the poor, the afflicted, the orphan, and the fatherless? I was sick, poor, hungry, and destitute of clothing; what did you do for me with my intrusted means? How was the time I lent you employed? How did you use your pen, your voice, your money, your influence? I made you the depositary of a precious trust by opening before you the thrilling truths heralding my second coming. What have you done with the light and knowledge I gave you to make men wise unto salvation? Our Lord has gone away to receive his kingdom; but he will prepare mansions for us, and then will come to take us to himself. In his absence he has given us the privilege of being co-laborers with him in the work of preparing souls to enter those mansions of light and glory. It was not that we might lead a life of worldly pleasure and extravagance that he left the royal courts of Heaven, clothing his divinity with humanity, and becoming poor that we through his poverty might be made rich. He did this that we might follow his example of self-denial for others. Each one of us is building upon the true foundation, wood, hay, and stubble, to be consumed in the last great conflagration, and our life-work be lost, or we are building upon that foundation, gold, silver, and precious stones, which will never perish, but shine the brighter amid the devouring elements that will try every man’s work. Any unfaithfulness in spiritual and eternal things here will result in loss throughout endless ages. Those who lead a Christless life, who exclude Jesus from heart, home, and business, who leave him out of their counsels, and trust to their own heart, and rely on their own judgment, are unfaithful servants, and will receive the reward which their works have merited. At his coming the Master will call his servants, and reckon with them. The parable certainly teaches that good works will be rewarded according to the motive that prompted them; that skill and intellect used in the service of God will prove a success, and will be rewarded according to the fidelity of the worker. Those who have had an eye single to the glory of God will have the richest reward. -ST 11-20-84
”
”
Ellen Gould White (Sabbath School Lesson Comments By Ellen G. White - 2nd Quarter 2015 (April, May, June 2015 Book 32))
“
gave up on the idea of creating “socialist men and women” who would work without monetary incentives. In a famous speech he criticized “equality mongering,” and thereafter not only did different jobs get paid different wages but also a bonus system was introduced. It is instructive to understand how this worked. Typically a firm under central planning had to meet an output target set under the plan, though such plans were often renegotiated and changed. From the 1930s, workers were paid bonuses if the output levels were attained. These could be quite high—for instance, as much as 37 percent of the wage for management or senior engineers. But paying such bonuses created all sorts of disincentives to technological change. For one thing, innovation, which took resources away from current production, risked the output targets not being met and the bonuses not being paid. For another, output targets were usually based on previous production levels. This created a huge incentive never to expand output, since this only meant having to produce more in the future, since future targets would be “ratcheted up.” Underachievement was always the best way to meet targets and get the bonus. The fact that bonuses were paid monthly also kept everyone focused on the present, while innovation is about making sacrifices today in order to have more tomorrow. Even when bonuses and incentives were effective in changing behavior, they often created other problems. Central planning was just not good at replacing what the great eighteenth-century economist Adam Smith called the “invisible hand” of the market. When the plan was formulated in tons of steel sheet, the sheet was made too heavy. When it was formulated in terms of area of steel sheet, the sheet was made too thin. When the plan for chandeliers was made in tons, they were so heavy, they could hardly hang from ceilings. By the 1940s, the leaders of the Soviet Union, even if not their admirers in the West, were well aware of these perverse incentives. The Soviet leaders acted as if they were due to technical problems, which could be fixed. For example, they moved away from paying bonuses based on output targets to allowing firms to set aside portions of profits to pay bonuses. But a “profit motive” was no more encouraging to innovation than one based on output targets. The system of prices used to calculate profits was almost completely unconnected to the value of new innovations or technology. Unlike in a market economy, prices in the Soviet Union were set by the government, and thus bore little relation to value. To more specifically create incentives for innovation, the Soviet Union introduced explicit innovation bonuses in 1946. As early as 1918, the principle had been recognized that an innovator should receive monetary rewards for his innovation, but the rewards set were small and unrelated to the value of the new technology. This changed only in 1956, when it was stipulated that the bonus should be proportional to the productivity of the innovation. However, since productivity was calculated in terms of economic benefits measured using the existing system of prices, this was again not much of an incentive to innovate. One could fill many pages with examples of the perverse incentives these schemes generated. For example, because the size of the innovation bonus fund was limited by the wage bill of a firm, this immediately reduced the incentive to produce or adopt any innovation that might have economized on labor.
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
“
Growth was so rapid that it took in generations of Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned out badly, you might get shot. Better to avoid all responsibility. An example of what could happen
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
“
Humanitarian aid missions are symbolic to the ethical beliefs and practices that influence social reform.
”
”
Wayne Chirisa
“
Because you have nothing, it doesn't mean you are useless.
Because we don't know you. It doesn't mean you are not important.
Because some ill treat you or abuse you.
It doesn't mean you are not special.
Because others hurt you, it doesn't mean you are not loved.
You mean a lot to other people, even thou ,you don’t know it .
Choose to live and choose life.
We are all fighting demons, depression, poverty, rejection, failure, hate, unemployment, and a lost of loved ones. We just choose to focus on positive things in life, rather than negative things. Choose to focus on good things happening than on bad things happening.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
I hate poverty as much as she hates me that's why we do not go along. Where ever she see's me, she runs like never before, she hates me so much because I shine too bright that it affects her eyes and makes her blind to notice me.
”
”
Deborah Nwakwesili.
“
Unemployement not only diminishes the socioeconomic status of the affected society, but also broadens the platform for poverty.
”
”
Wayne Chirisa
“
Furthermore, Western motives appeared mysterious. Why was the international community so intent on ridding Nigeria of polio when other local needs were more pressing? Nigerians questioned the plausibility of a campaign against polio when they were far more concerned with safe water, poverty, and diseases that were more prevalent, such as malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS.
”
”
Frank M. Snowden III (Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present)
“
I will suggest that we do not only teach poor people how to fish but how to farm the fish—aquaculture!
”
”
Lucas D. Shallua (Average to Abundant: How Ordinary People Build Sustainable Wealth and Enjoy the Process)
“
You cannot keep blaming the rich people for all of your miseries if you are not willing to act in the first place.
”
”
Mwanandeke Kindembo (Resistance To Intolerance)
“
You are a collection of your own thoughts. What thoughts you generate these are accumulated and formed your own destiny.
If you richly think, you become rich, if you poorly think, you become poor. Therefore, your thought is the master of your own life.
”
”
Lord Robin
“
If we believe in prosperity for all that will lead to liberation from poverty,
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita
“
Even if a sandalwood is cut, it does not forsake its fragrance; even if an elephant grows old, it does not forsake its sportiveness; even if a sugarcane is squeezed in a mill, it does not forsake its sweetness; likewise, even if reduced to abject poverty, a man of noble lineage does not forsake his noble qualities.
”
”
Rajen Jani (Old Chanakya Strategy: Aphorisms)
“
Fear. Thakura describes this as being driven by “sickness, poverty, fear of hell or fear of death.” Desire. Seeking personal gratification through success, wealth, and pleasure. Duty. Motivated by gratitude, responsibility, and the desire to do the right thing. Love. Compelled by care for others and the urge to help them. These
”
”
Jay Shetty (Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Everyday)
“
Better to be poor in possessions rather than in thoughts and your way of reasoning.
”
”
Mwanandeke Kindembo
“
Paul writes that because of the strictures of the time, believers should not permit themselves to become inextricably involved in this world order. “The appointed time has grown very short; from now on let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who make use of the world as though they were not making complete use of it. For the form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:29-31).10 The key to the meaning of this passage is found in the last phrase; the form, the structure of this world is passing away. It is not evil in itself, and therefore a life of physical detachment or asceticism is not required. The structure of worldly relationships is, however, transitory and is destined to pass away; and since Christians belong to the new and divine order, while they still find themselves in the world and must of necessity make use of the world, the goal of their lives must not be that of making the fullest use of this world, i.e., of finding their deepest motivations and satisfactions on the earthly, worldly level. Paul is not urging celibacy and poverty and emotional apathy to the experiences of life. Rather, he insists that the sources of one’s true life stem from a higher level, and in the resources of this spiritual world and its objectives he or she finds the deepest meaning of existence. While continuing to live in the world, one is not to surrender to it or abandon oneself to its enjoyment, for it can stand between a person and God.*
”
”
George Eldon Ladd (A Theology of the New Testament)
“
To live and strive in modern America is to participate in a series of morally fraught systems. If a family’s entire financial livelihood depends on the value of its home, it’s not hard to understand why that family would oppose anything that could potentially lower its property values, like a proposal to develop an affordable housing complex in the neighborhood. If an aging couple’s nest egg depends on how the stock market performs, it’s not hard to see why that couple would support legislation designed to yield higher returns, even if that means shortchanging workers. Social ills—segregation, exploitation—can be motivated by bigotry and selfishness as well as by the best of intentions, such as protecting our children. Especially protecting our children. These arrangements create what the postwar sociologist C. Wright Mills called “structural immorality” and what the political scientist Jamila Michener more recently labeled exploitation “on a societal level.”[27] We are connected, members of a shared nation and a shared economy, where the advantages of the rich often come at the expense of the poor. But that arrangement is not inevitable or permanent. It was made by human hands and can be unmade by them.
”
”
Matthew Desmond (Poverty, by America)
“
Some people put themselves in harms way because they think what they can benefit from it. It is greater than the poverty, pain, abuse, assault, rape, humiliation, suffering and is greater than having a boring life or working hard .
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
There are millions of people who BELIEVE themselves “doomed” to poverty and failure, because of some strange force over which they BELIEVE they have no control. They are the creators of their own “misfortunes, “ because of this negative BELIEF, which is picked up by the subconscious mind, and translated into its physical equivalent.
”
”
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich: Granddaddy of All Motivational Literature)
“
I have failed many times in my life. But I don't give up.
- Avijeet Rabindranath Das
Teaching is a noble profession just as the profession of a Doctor is. Don't belittle this noble profession for the sake of money, followers, and fame. To all the MBA Gurus/ Motivational Gurus/ Teachers/ Trainers - don't use students for your need to increase your followers or your need to earn more money. Give service and to those students who need it. You may live a life of poverty, but you will live an inspirational life.
- Avijeet Rabindranath Das
My Dad, Dr Rabindranath Das, is a doctor who never cheated any of the people just to become rich. He still lives in his old house in my hometown.
”
”
Avijeet Das
“
Patience in poverty and humility in affluence combine to form the melody of our character. The orchestration of who we are manifests itself in the delicate balance between what we endure with patience and how we carry ourselves with richness.
”
”
Shree Shambav (Life Changing Journey - 365 Inspirational Quotes - Series - I)
“
People who lack of motivations always blame others, especially the capitalist for their poverty!
”
”
Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
Thakura describes four fundamental motivations. Fear. Thakura describes this as being driven by “sickness, poverty, fear of hell or fear of death.” Desire. Seeking personal gratification through success, wealth, and pleasure. Duty. Motivated by gratitude, responsibility, and the desire to do the right thing. Love. Compelled by care for others and the urge to help them.
”
”
Jay Shetty (Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Everyday)
“
Poverty acted as a motivating force for the rich and poor alike. It allowed the rich to be inspired to acts of charity for the community, and it forced the poor to learn from their desperation and pushed them toward, patience, thrift, and hard work.
”
”
Mike Konczal (Freedom from the Market: America's Fight to Liberate Itself from the Grip of the Invisible Hand)
“
He thought about all the people that needed things and wanted certain outcomes that could never come true.
”
”
Nick Oliveri (Becoming the Conjurer)
“
I came to think of poverty of speech as a reflection of the richness of the mind, giving it time to explore and develop each thought.
”
”
J. Lam (Snow at Heaven's Edge: A Tale from the Carefree Swordsman Saga)
“
Faith and purpose constitute the motive-power of life. There is nothing that a strong faith and an unflinching purpose may not accomplish.
”
”
James Allen (From Poverty to Power)
“
In your life, some people need you to show up as the best version of yourself so you can provide security or a better future. Some people come to America to provide a better future for their families. Others dedicate themselves to earning multi-generational wealth to stop the cycle of poverty for their loved ones.
”
”
Nate Green (Suck Less, Do Better: The End of Excuses & the Rise of the Unstoppable You)
“
We are not saying everyone must suffer, become a street kid , homeless or have a sad sobbing story in order to make it. We are saying everyone needs to make the best of their situation. Use every resource possible at their disposal. Don’t be discouraged because of your surroundings or background but you should do everything in your power to fight poverty. The end goal is not to suffer or beg anymore.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
The solution to poverty is not the pocket but a life lived for a God-given purpose. Purpose begets happiness, abundance, fulfilment, and a great sense of self-worth.
”
”
Gift Gugu Mona (Your Life, Your Purpose: 365 Motivational Quotes)
“
The solution to poverty is not
the pocket but a life lived for a
God-given purpose. Purpose begets
happiness, abundance, fulfilment,
and a great sense of self-worth.
”
”
Gift Gugu Mona (Your Life, Your Purpose: 365 Motivational Quotes)
“
I have a proper regard for the prosperity of my country: every native of it appropriates to himself some share of the power, or the fame, which, as a nation, it acquires, but I cannot throw off the man so much as to rejoice at our conquests in India. You tell me of immense territories subject to the English: I cannot think of their possessions without being led to inquire by what right they possess them. They came there as traders, bartering the commodities they brought for others which their purchasers could spare; and however great their profits were, they were then equitable. But what title have the subjects of another kingdom to establish an empire in India? to give laws to a country where the inhabitants received them on the terms of friendly commerce? You say they are happier under our regulations than the tyranny of their own petty princes. I must doubt it, from the conduct of those by whom these regulations have been made. They have drained the treasuries of Nabobs, who must fill them by oppressing the industry of their subjects. Nor is this to be wondered at, when we consider the motive upon which those gentlemen do not deny their going to India. The fame of conquest, barbarous as that motive is, is but a secondary consideration: there are certain stations in wealth to which the warriors of the East aspire. It is there, indeed, where the wishes of their friends assign them eminence, where the question of their country is pointed at their return. When shall I see a commander return from India in the pride of honourable poverty? You describe the victories they have gained; they are sullied by the cause in which they fought: you enumerate the spoils of those victories; they are covered with the blood of the vanquished.
”
”
Henry MacKenzie (The Man of Feeling [By H. Mackenzie])
“
There are unique tools you can use to take yourself out of the pit of poverty. One of them is a tool called ‘Purpose’. By the power vested upon you by the Mighty God, find it and use it, then watch your life transform.
”
”
Gift Gugu Mona (Your Life, Your Purpose: 365 Motivational Quotes)
“
When we examine, not the language of the propaganda, but the witness of the combatants themselves, religion does not occupy the first place. Their motivations are more often secular: they mention their sympathy for a population reduced to poverty, the victims of the whim of ruling classes that live in luxury and corruption- rulers able to maintain themselves in power thanks only to the support of the American government ( as in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt). They speak of the members of their families or their local communities who have suffered or died by the fault of these governments ( and thus of their protectors); and they want to avenge them. The thirst for vengeance did not wait for Islam to appear in the world, and the appeal to the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is universal.
”
”
Tzvetan Todorov
“
Augustine then cites Proverbs 30:7–9 as an example: “Give me neither poverty nor riches: Feed me with food appropriate for me lest I be full and deny you . . . or lest I be poor, and steal and take the name of my God in vain.” This is an excellent test. Consider the petition “O Lord—give me a job so I won’t be poor.” That is an appropriate thing to ask God for. Indeed, it is essentially the same thing as to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Yet the Proverbs 30 prayer reveals the only proper motivation beneath the request. If you just jump into prayer without recognizing the disordered nature of the heart’s loves, your prayer’s intention will be, “Make me as wealthy as possible.” The Proverbs 30 prayer is different. It is to ask, “Lord, meet my material needs, and give me wealth, yes, but only as much as I can handle without it harming my ability to put you first in life. Because ultimately I don’t need status and comfort—I need you as my Lord.
”
”
Timothy J. Keller (Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God)
“
Fear of poverty is a state of mind, nothing else! But it is sufficient to destroy one’s chances of achievement in any undertaking, a truth which became painfully evident during the depression.
”
”
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich (Start Motivational Books))
“
Great occasions often stimulate a person to do something great, but that tells nothing of his or her real character. Great is the person who does good always, in sickness and in health, in riches and in poverty.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Education Decree)
“
Great is the person who does good always, in sickness and in health, in riches and in poverty.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Education Decree)
“
If you make sleeping your hobby then poverty becomes your best companion
”
”
ETC Wanyanwu
“
Indigence is one of those states, politicians less likely wish to manage.
”
”
Ymatruz
“
If you can survive and won the battle over other millions of semen deposited alongside with you in your mothers womb, tell me why you cannot win the battle over challenges, difficulties and poverty? Friend, I know you will succeed because; you'd once done it in the womb.
”
”
Godspower Oparaugo (Wake Up: 100 Powerful Truths to Inspire and Motivate You for Success)
“
So how can we improve the educational system? We should probably first rethink school curricula, and link them in more obvious ways to social goals (elimination of poverty and crime, elevation of human rights, etc.), technological goals (boosting energy conservation, space exploration, nanotechnology, etc.), and medical goals (cures for cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc.) that we care about as a society. This way the students, teachers, and parents might see the larger point in education and become more enthusiastic and motivated about it. We should also work hard on making education a goal in itself, and stop confusing the number of hours students spend in school with the quality of the education they get. Kids can get excited about many things (baseball, for example), and it is our challenge as a society to make them want to know as much about Nobel laureates as they now know about baseball players. I am not suggesting that igniting a social passion for education is simple; but if we succeed in doing so, the value could be immense.
”
”
Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions)
“
There is, in the circumstances of modern life, only one solution to the problem of resentment, and that is social mobility. The worst thing that the state can do is to create those traps – the poverty trap, the welfare trap, the education trap – which deprive people of the motives and the skills to improve their lot, and retain them in a state of permanent discontented dependence on a world that they cannot fully enter. In
”
”
Roger Scruton (How to Be a Conservative)
“
When prayer replace work then poverty takes over
”
”
Nicky Verd
“
The desire of most people on earth is to make money and money seems to be the greatest motivation in life for a lot of people.
”
”
Sunday Adelaja (How To Become Great Through Time Conversion: Are you wasting time, spending time or investing time?)
“
THEY SAY "MOST RELATIONSHIPS FAIL DUE TO THE POVERTY." I COMPLETELY DISAGREE WITH THAT.I HAVE SEEN COUPLES WHO COME FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND THEY STARTED THEIR LIFE FROM NOTHING, THEY DON'T EVEN SPOKE ENGLISH AND TODAY THEY LIVE BETTER LIFE THAN MANY COUPLES I KNOW WHO ARE BORN IN USA. I THING MOST RELATIONSHIPS FAIL DUE TO THE LACK OF MOTIVATION LACK OF COMMUNISCATION AND THEIR LIFE GOALS.
”
”
Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why? A single bottom line of profit motive no longer serves our interdependent world. We must move from a focus on shareholders to one on stakeholders, take a long-term view, and measure what matters, not just what we can count. That’s a lot easier to say than to do. So we created a manifesto at Acumen, a moral compass to guide our decisions and actions. It is an aspirational document, one I think about daily, though I don’t always live up to it. It is long for a billboard, but maybe if we put it in the right place and encouraged people to pause for just a moment, which in itself wouldn’t be so bad. Here it is: It starts by standing with the poor, listening to voices unheard, and recognizing potential where others see despair. It demands investing as a means, not an end, daring to go where markets have failed and aid has fallen short. It makes capital work for us, not control us. It thrives on moral imagination: the humility to see the world as it is, and the audacity to imagine the world as it could be. It’s having the ambition to learn at the edge, the wisdom to admit failure, and the courage to start again. It requires patience and kindness, resilience and grit: a hard-edged hope. It’s leadership that rejects complacency, breaks through bureaucracy, and challenges corruption. Doing what’s right, not what’s easy. It’s the radical idea of creating hope in a cynical world. Changing the way the world tackles poverty and building a world based on dignity. Or else, I might borrow Rilke’s gorgeous mantra to “Live the Questions,” which is a simple reminder to have the moral courage to live in the gray, sit with uncertainty but not in a passive way. Live the questions so that, one day, you will live yourself into the answers. . . . What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world”? Don’t worry all that much about your first job. Just start, and let the work teach you. With every step, you will discover more about who you want to be and what you want to do. If you wait for the perfect and keep all of your options open, you might end up with nothing but options. So start.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tribe Of Mentors: Transformative Wisdom From Icons and Innovators to Help You Navigate Life's Challenges)
“
Struggles are not associated to a particular people or creed, everyone struggles, not for the same reasons, but each has a personal struggle at certain times or all the time.
”
”
Wayne Chirisa
“
Absolute solution comes from absolute problem, ultimate certainty comes from ultimate uncertainty, total acceptance comes from total rejection, complete perfection comes from complete flaw, ample richness comes from ample poverty, foolproof protection comes from unyielding danger and unlimited liberty comes from unlimited restriction. Each one is coincident of another as dark is coincident of light.
To such a degree, never try to escape from them.Rather bravely and wisely engage to sort them out . You know, these wonderful stuffs fetch for its tail all wonderful-reverse-stuffs, making your life tested and dignified.
Never give up rather wake-up, have a great shower, eat, dress up and join in the struggle. Neither dishearten yourself nor give ears to others' words, just keep faith on you, believe your own intuition and keep the struggle going...
I am damn sure, Success, it must lay its head eventually beneath your noble feet as a flunky of order execution and will crown you as the king. Many Cheers from Lord Robin.
”
”
Lord Robin
“
You want to know what gets on my nerves? When people say 'you can't be a Christian because you're LGBT+, or you used to be a Muslim/Hindu/atheist/pretty much anything else really'. The reason people say those things is because we believe doing so is sinning, but haven't we all sinned? Aren't we all in the same boat, at the mercy of the storm raging outside? If so, why keep to ourselves in what we think is the safest corner, but the whole boat sinks nonetheless? Every sin, whether it's stealing a cookie from the cookie jar to murdering and robbing an innocent child is sin. Even if you have never done any wrong, except did one thing, isn't your soul still poisoned, still doomed to being a sinner? Why must we separate ourself because we believe we are 'righteous', when in doing so we simply dirty ourselves in sinful dust even more so, yet continue to believe ourselves better then anyone else? If you don't think you are worthy, or can possibly be righteous, well, I'm afraid your not on track. The only reason we are even not-dead-yet is because a perfect soul died after never sinning, Jesus payed the price we so selfishly went into debt for because we wanted temporary satisfaction and worthless paper called money. If we have all been called to be clean, why must we refuse this and say others are dirty, when if that's true we are dirty as well ourselves? We sink the boat we are on to see others drown, yet in the process we drown ourselves. We have been selfish, lazy, prideful, and sinful, every one of is, and yet are so blind we cannot even see the great light that calls us to be clean and perfect. There is no such thing as too far gone, so why do we say others are too far gone yet set the bar lower for ourselves? Are we more perfect, more righteous, more forgiven then people who don't know God as well as we do? Surely not! If we know God, instead of keeping him to ourselves we are quite clearly instructed to give freely in the Bible, and yet we refuse to do so for the sake of our sinful pride. Why do we not reach down, and get our knees dirty to help the poor? What is stopping us from going that extra mile, from giving more then you have, from reaching out with the great news of the savior? We are too prideful, we don't want our silken robes to get muddy in someone else's sin even when they're already disgusting in ours. We tell ourselves we're are too tired to walk the extra mile, yet powerful enough to strike down the needy and ones in poverty. We are too greedy, we would rather keep the Savior to ourselves then give it, even though in giving you get even more. What right do we have to choose who should come with us into heaven? What heavenly authority gave us the power to say 'you sin, you cannot come to heaven', even though we sinners think we can when there is no difference between us? Any one can truly believe, there is no 'special requirement' to be a Christian other then to know God exists (well, duh you didn't need to tell us that) and to know you are a sinner and to try to not sin, even though we all fail miserably at that, and to love God with all your heart and soul and mind, and to love your neighbor as much as God loves them. (No, autocorrect is not a human, I hate it too). There is no human on earth who is perfect, if you believe yourself to be so you are even more wrong then before. If there is anyone reading this, who is suicidal or LGBT+ and have been bullied or just don't know, trust me, there is nothing, NOTHING preventing you from believing except for your own will. I don't know if this is a quote or a rant ;;
”
”
Unicornfarts2000
“
Rich can live better than poor but they cannot live without poor.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
Countries differ in their economic success because of their different institutions, the rules influencing how the economy works, and the incentives that motivate people.
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty)
“
careful understanding of the motivations and the constraints of everyone can lead to policies and institutions that are better designed, and less likely to be perverted by corruption or derelication of duty. these changes will be incremental, but they will sustain and build on themselves. they can be the start of a quiet revolution.
”
”
Abhijit V. Banerjee (Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty)
“
Problem is, a lot of Christians who believe the world is headed for imminent destruction don’t use their eschatology to motivate altruism. Some, in fact, use their belief in the coming apocalypse to justify negligence and destruction. Critics of pretrib theology point out that rapture obsession can make Christians overlook glaring social needs in the present, like genocide, disease, and abject poverty.
”
”
Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
“
Absolutism and a lack of, or weak, political centralization are two different barriers to the spread of industry. But they are also connected; both are kept in place by fear of creative destruction and because the process of political centralization often creates a tendency toward absolutism. Resistance to political centralization is motivated by reasons similar to resistance to inclusive political institutions: fear of losing political power, this time to the newly centralizing state and those who control it.
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty)
“
What would they find? A better life? Or the same dreary, grinding poverty that had motivated their immigration in the first place?
”
”
Kevin Starr (California: A History)
“
It is not enough for us to perform the works of virtue, exercising obedience, excepting poverty or disgrace or practicing humility or detachment in some other way; rather we should strive ceaselessly until we attain the essence and ground of virtue. And we can tell if we have attained this or not by asking whether we find ourselves inclined to virtue above all else and perform the works of virtue without prior preparation of the will, practicing virtue without the ulterior motive even of a great and good cause, so that the virtuous act in fact happen spontaneously on account of love of virtue and without asking ‘what for?’ Then and only then do we have the perfect possession of virtue.
”
”
Meister Eckhart (Selected Writings)
“
God’s Kingdom is not built on the profit motive. The world’s favorite verb is get. The verb of the Christian is give. Self-interest is basic in modern society. Everyone asks, “What’s in it for me?” In a world founded on materialism, this is natural and normal. But in God’s Kingdom self-interest is not basic—selflessness is. The Founder, Jesus Christ, was rich, and yet He became poor that we “through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
”
”
Billy Graham (Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional)
“
The exultation of poverty as a spiritual virtue is of the ego, not the spirit. A person acting from a motivation of contribution and service rises to such a level of moral authority that worldly success is a natural result.
”
”
Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles")
“
There are 5 types of poverty. Money is just one of them. Love, Wisdom, Motivation and Hope are the other four.
”
”
Robin Sacredfire
“
Why should sinners prosper and sins suffer? It is ignorant; don't think that the poorer you are the quicker you will see God, sorry no unclean thing shall see heaven. Poverty is a disgrace to God. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. You can be free, you can perform a miracle if you are a born again. I do not mean Church goers.
”
”
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
Poverty I am too beautiful to be like you. Sickness from the crown of my head to the sole of my feet, I belong to God.
”
”
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
Love is the only power that heals, connects and includes all.....not by force, but by grace.
”
”
Vivian Amis (The Lotus - Realization of Oneness)
“
Fifty year old wealthy man resents twenty five year old middle class man, without recalling that 25 years back even he was a poor man.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned out badly, you might get shot. Better to avoid all responsibility. An example of what could happen
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
“
The situation was similar in the Soviet Union, with industry playing the role of sugar in the Caribbean. Industrial growth in the Soviet Union was further facilitated because its technology was so backward relative to what was available in Europe and the United States, so large gains could be reaped by reallocating resources to the industrial sector, even if all this was done inefficiently and by force. Before 1928 most Russians lived in the countryside. The technology used by peasants was primitive, and there were few incentives to be productive. Indeed, the last vestiges of Russian feudalism were eradicated only shortly before the First World War. There was thus huge unrealized economic potential from reallocating this labor from agriculture to industry. Stalinist industrialization was one brutal way of unlocking this potential. By fiat, Stalin moved these very poorly used resources into industry, where they could be employed more productively, even if industry itself was very inefficiently organized relative to what could have been achieved. In fact, between 1928 and 1960 national income grew at 6 percent a year, probably the most rapid spurt of economic growth in history up until then. This quick economic growth was not created by technological change, but by reallocating labor and by capital accumulation through the creation of new tools and factories. Growth was so rapid that it took in generations of Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy.
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
“
Some who will read this, will believe that no one can think and grow rich. They cannot think in terms of riches, because their thought habits have been steeped in poverty, want, misery, failure, and defeat.
”
”
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich (Start Motivational Books))
“
Success not maintained is worst than Poverty inheritted. Riches without maintenance is worst than inheritted Poverty.
”
”
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
“
What motivated me to write was a pale September, walking to and fro from school, a hail shower in Swaziland, a forest of flowers, autumn in Port Elizabeth, the falling of the leaves, the wind in the trees, the golden threads were caught up and that ran in my sister's hair, children caught in poverty, abandonment, neglect, malnourished with their distended bellies, the weight of driftwood, seawater, fish and chips with my mother after our walk on the beach, talk of angels in war, drought, famine, hunger, the spitting, thin rain or being drenched by a downpour, harbingers, outsiders and insiders.
”
”
Abigail George (Winter in Johannesburg)
“
Some people are motivated by fear—fear of poverty, fear of losing their partner’s love, or fear of gaining weight, for instance. Fear is an ineffective motivator because it results in poor decision making and low creativity. Other people sense your fears and insecurities, and they are repelled, as opposed to being inspired to help you. There is no power or magic in fear, but there’s unlimited power and magic in fear’s opposite: love and joy. With success, then, attitude
”
”
Doreen Virtue (I'd Change My Life If I Had More Time: A Practical Guide to Making Dreams Come True)
“
Part 1. My Life Story.
- If I can do it, so can you-
I was born and lived in one of the most oldest and most beautiful cities in Albania. for 23 years I lived under the communist regime, where everyone was poor, there was no rich people beside the Elite group who dictate the country. Since I was little girl I dreamed of fairy tale life. But for some reason no one was supportive of my dreams. It looked like they were enjoying watching us living in poverty and keep our heads down, for instance I remember when I was in 5th grade I told my literature teacher "When I get older I want to be a beautician." With a smire on her face she said "You are going to be just like your mother, keep having kids in a row" At that time I did not understood what she meant, but I did not expected that answer from an "educated" person, especially your teacher. As I got older I started to isolate myself from all the negative people until one day I asked my uncle to help me to get in a beauty college, he knew people in town that's why, I did not wanted to believe he respond. Even today I can hear his words whisper in my ears, telling me "Beauty college is not for poor children, education is only for rich kids" But that did not stopped me either, I told myself "No one can tell me what I can and can't do" They just motivated me to prove them wrong. Poor children can go to college. So I decided to make a very big move my that would either end it my life or could change my life for ever. Sep 2, 1990 I had it enough of that hell place, communist regime and all the negative people.I decided to leave everyone behind me and move forward in life, I decided to escape the communist and followed my dreams. I was also escaped from army who was chasing to kill us, but mighty God was with us. We made the local news saying "Two young girls were killed today by army forces escaping the borders" but I made it alive to Yugoslavia, I spend almost seven months there in concentration camp. There I meet the love of my life also, we dated for five months, until his visa was approved to come in US, two months later I come to state on March of 1991. New place, new chapter in my life, two weeks later got united, neither of us spoke English, it was very hard to find jobs, we manage to get a job in a local restaurant as a dishwasher and me as a bustable, at that time I was very I found a happy, so I did it with smile on my face. We were living at my husband's cousins unfinished basement. Yes we were sharing a single / twin size bed, we had to saved money so we can get our own apartment, we had nothing insite site. I remember when the manager showed us the appartment, it was green shaggy carpet, I told my husband. "Honey the carpet is thick enough, we don't need mattress to sleep on it, we can sleep on the carpet" later on a co-worker give us some household stuff to start our life with. Later that year our 1st child /daughter was born, two months later we get married in a local Albania church. Life was getting way better than living under the communist regime, later on we have two more children. We decided to bring my parents here so they can help us, I can get back to work or go to school . On April 1, 1998 my father come, we picked him at airport, with tears on his eye he was looking the street lights outside of the car window and said, "America is beautiful country, is land of dreams,....when I die please bury me here and not in Albania" By that time have I learning enough English to continued my education. I went to beauty school. two years later I graduated and got the state license. Yahhhh my dreams start coming true, remember I told you I always wanted to be a beautician. I found a job in a local salon, couple months later I was promoted to a salon manager. I did it for me and not for them who did not believed on me, As I said " I never cared
”
”
Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
Part 1. My Life Story.
- If I can do it, so can you-
I was born and lived in one of the most oldest and most beautiful cities in Albania. for 23 years I lived under the communist regime, where everyone was poor, there was no rich people beside the Elite group who dictate the country. Since I was little girl I dreamed of fairy tale life. But for some reason no one was supportive of my dreams. It looked like they were enjoying watching us living in poverty and keep our heads down, for instance I remember when I was in 5th grade I told my literature teacher "When I get older I want to be a beautician." With a smire on her face she said "You are going to be just like your mother, keep having kids in a row" At that time I did not understood what she meant, but I did not expected that answer from an "educated" person, especially your teacher. As I got older I started to isolate myself from all the negative people until one day I asked my uncle to help me to get in a beauty college, he knew people in town that's why, I did not wanted to believe he respond. Even today I can hear his words whisper in my ears, telling me "Beauty college is not for poor children, education is only for rich kids" But that did not stopped me either, I told myself "No one can tell me what I can and can't do" They just motivated me to prove them wrong. Poor children can go to college. So I decided to make a very big move my that would either end it my life or could change my life for ever. Sep 2, 1990 I had it enough of that hell place, communist regime and all the negative people.I decided to leave everyone behind me and move forward in life, I decided to escape the communist and followed my dreams. I was also escaped from army who was chasing to kill us, but mighty God was with us. We made the local news saying "Two young girls were killed today by army forces escaping the borders" but I made it alive to Yugoslavia, I spend almost seven months there in concentration camp. There I meet the love of my life also, we dated for five months, until his visa was approved to come in US, two months later I come to state on March of 1991. New place, new chapter in my life, two weeks later got united, neither of us spoke English, it was very hard to find jobs, we manage to get a job in a local restaurant as a dishwasher and me as a bustable, at that time I was very I found a happy, so I did it with smile on my face. We were living at my husband's cousins unfinished basement. Yes we were sharing a single / twin size bed, we had to saved money so we can get our own apartment, we had nothing insite site. I remember when the manager showed us the appartment, it was green shaggy carpet, I told my husband. "Honey the carpet is thick enough, we don't need mattress to sleep on it, we can sleep on the carpet" later on a co-worker give us some household stuff to start our life with. Later that year our 1st child /daughter was born, two months later we get married in a local Albania church. Life was getting way better than living under the communist regime, later on we have two more children. We decided to bring my parents here so they can help us, I can get back to work or go to school . On April 1, 1998 my father come, we picked him at airport, with tears on his eye he was looking the street lights outside of the car window and said, "America is beautiful country, is land of dreams,....when I die please bury me here and not in Albania" By that time have I learning enough English to continued my education. I went to beauty school. two years later I graduated and got the state license. Yahhhh my dreams start coming true, remember I told you I always wanted to be a beautician. I found a job in a local salon, couple months later I was promoted to a salon manager. I did it for me and not for them who did not believed on me, As I said " I never cared
”
”
Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
Hatred is an incredibly strong motivator. In fact, that’s how dictatorships work. They redirect their people’s dissatisfaction with their lousy lives, poverty, and lack of human rights by blaming the situation on some enemy nation.
”
”
I.T. Lucas (Dark Secrets Resurgence (The Children of the Gods, #44))
“
Hatred is an incredibly strong motivator. In fact, that’s how dictatorships work. They redirect their people’s dissatisfaction with their lousy lives, poverty, and lack of human rights by blaming the situation on some enemy
”
”
I.T. Lucas (Dark Secrets Resurgence (The Children of the Gods, #44))
“
From the tree of crimes committed by oneself, comes forth fruits in the body as poverty, sorrow, disease, bondage, and affliction.
”
”
Rajen Jani (Old Chanakya Strategy: Aphorisms)
“
The biggest problem Africa has , it is not poverty or economy, lack of resources or infrastructure, lack of technology or slavery , but it is African leaders.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
Sorrow of separation from one’s beloved, dishonour from one’s own people, exhaustion of money taken as a loan, serving a wicked person, and friends becoming two-faced in one’s poverty; these five without fire burn the body.
”
”
Rajen Jani (Old Chanakya Strategy: Aphorisms)
“
Economic activity removes poverty, chanting removes sins, silence removes quarrels, alertness removes fear.
”
”
Rajen Jani (Old Chanakya Strategy: Aphorisms)
“
Without a son, a house is empty; directions are empty without relations; a fool’s heart is empty; absolutely empty is poverty.
”
”
Rajen Jani (Old Chanakya Strategy: Aphorisms)
“
Without its application, knowledge is poison; in stomach troubles, food is poison; in poverty, a social gathering is poison; in old age, a young woman is poison.
”
”
Rajen Jani (Old Chanakya Strategy: Aphorisms)
“
Charity destroys poverty, righteous conduct destroys misery, awareness destroys ignorance, feeling destroys fear.
”
”
Rajen Jani (Old Chanakya Strategy: Aphorisms)
“
In poverty is patience seated, in a bad garment is appearing good seated, in bad food is heating seated, in ugliness is good manners seated.
”
”
Rajen Jani (Old Chanakya Strategy: Aphorisms)
“
So how can we improve the educational system? We should probably first rethink school curricula, and link them in more obvious ways to social goals (elimination of poverty and crime, elevation of human rights, etc.), technological goals (boosting energy conservation, space exploration, nanotechnology, etc.), and medical goals (cures for cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc.) that we care about as a society. This way the students, teachers, and parents might see the larger point in education and become more enthusiastic and motivated about it. We should also work hard on making education a goal in itself, and stop confusing the number of hours students spend in school with the quality of the education they get.
”
”
Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions)
“
THERE ARE NO LIMITATIONS TO THE MIND EXCEPT THOSE WE ACKNOWLEDGE BOTH POVERTY AND RICHES ARE THE OFFSPRING OF THOUGHT
”
”
George S. Clason (World’s Greatest Books For Personal Growth & Wealth (Set of 4 Books): Perfect Motivational Gift Set)
“
The U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries. That fact gives the U.S. enhanced interest in the political, economic, and social stability of the supplying countries. Wherever a lessening of population pressures through reduced birth rates can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resource supplies and to the economic interests of the United States.
...
Assistance for population moderation should give primary emphasis to the largest and fastest growing developing countries where there is special U.S. political and strategic interest. Those countries are: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia and Columbia
...
At the same time, the U.S. will look to the multilateral agencies, especially the U.N. Fund for Population Activities which already has projects in over 80 countries to increase population assistance on a broader basis with increased U.S. contributions. This is desirable in terms of U.S. interests and necessary in political terms in the United Nations.
...
young people can more readily be persuaded to attack the legal institutions of the government or real property of the ‘establishment,’ ‘imperialists,’ multinational corporations, or other — often foreign — influences blamed for their troubles.
...
Without diminishing in any way the effort to reach these adults, the obvious increased focus of attention should be to change the attitudes of the next generation, those who are now in elementary school or younger.
...
There is also the danger that some LDC [less developed countries] leaders will see developed country pressures for family planning as a form of economic or racial imperialism; this could well create a serious backlash.… The U.S. can help to minimize charges of an imperialist motivation behind its support of population activities by repeatedly asserting that such support derives from a concern with:
(a) The right of the individual couple to determine freely and responsibly the number and spacing of children and to have information, education, and means to do so; and
(b) The fundamental social and economic development of poor countries in which rapid population growth is both a contributing cause and a consequence of widespread poverty.
”
”
National Security Council (The Kissinger Report: NSSM-200 Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security Interests)
“
Poverty is man-made power.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita
“
Adam Smith reduces the process of the formation of capital in the nation to the operation of a private rentier, whose income is determined by the value of his material capital, and who can only increase his income by savings which he again turns into capital. He does not consider that this theory of savings, which in the merchant’s office is quite correct, if followed by a whole nation must lead
to poverty, barbarism, powerlessness, and decay of national progress. Where everyone saves and economises as much as he possibly can, no
motive can exist for production. Where everyone merely takes thought for the accumulation of values of exchange, the mental power required
for production vanishes.
A nation consisting of such insane misers would give up the defence of the nation from fear of the expenses of war, and would only learn the truth after all its property had been sacrificed to foreign extortion, that the wealth of nations is to be attained in a manner different to that of the private rentier.
”
”
Friedrich List (The National System of Political Economy - Imperium Press)
“
It’s not fair!” is the mantra not of the poor and oppressed but of the rich and spoiled. The poor and oppressed of the world don’t pout, “It’s not fair!”—they know the world too well to dare.
”
”
Shawn Davis (The Talk: A Young Person's Guide to Life's Big Questions)
“
Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.
”
”
Joseph Hampton (2001 INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES : (2 Books in 1) Daily Inspirational and Motivational Quotations by Famous People About Life, Love, and Success (for work, business, students, best quotes of the day))
“
YouTube:
"Jordan Peterson | The Most Terrifying IQ Statistic"
JORDAN PETERSON: One of the most terrifying statistics I ever came across was one detailing out the rationale of the United States Armed Forces for not allowing the induct … you can't induct anyone into the Armed Forces into the Armed Forces in the U.S. if they have an IQ of less than 83. Okay, so let's just take that apart for a minute, because it's a horrifying thing. So, the U.S. Armed Forces have been in the forefront of intelligence research since World War I because they were onboard early with the idea that, especially during war time when you are ramping up quickly that you need to sort people effectively and essentially without prejudice so that you can build up the officer corps so you don't lose the damned war, okay. So, there is real motivation to get it right, because it's a life-and-death issue, so they used IQ. They did a lot of the early psychometric work on IQ. Okay, so that's the first thing, they are motivated to find an accurate predictor, so they settled on IQ. The second thing was, the United States Armed Forces is also really motivated to get people into the Armed Forces, peacetime or wartime. Wartime, well, for obvious reasons. Peacetime, because, well, first of all you've got to keep the Armed Forces going and second you can use the Armed Forces during peacetime as a way of taking people out of the underclass and moving them up into the working class or the middle class, right. You can use it as a training mechanism, and so left and right can agree on that, you know. It's a reasonable way of promoting social mobility. So again, the Armed Forces even in peacetime is very motivated to get as many people in as they possibly can. And it's difficult as well. It's not that easy to recruit people, so you don't want to throw people out if you don't have to. So, what's the upshot of all that? Well, after one hundred years, essentially, of careful statistical analysis, the Armed Forces concluded that if you had an IQ of 83 or less there wasn't anything you could possibly be trained to do in the military at any level of the organization that wasn't positively counterproductive. Okay, you think, well, so what, 83, okay. Yeah, one in ten! One in ten! That's one in ten people! And what that really means, as far as I can tell, is if you imagine that the military is approximately as complex as the broader society, which I think is a reasonable proposition, then there is no place in our cognitively complex society for one in ten people. So what are we going to do about that? The answer is, no one knows. You say, "well, shovel money down the hierarchy." It's like, the problem isn't lack of money. I mean sometimes that's the problem, but the problem is rarely absolute poverty. It's rarely that. It is sometimes, but rarely. It's not that easy to move money down the hierarchy. So, first of all, it's not that easy to manage money. So, it's a vicious problem, man. And so...
INTERVIEWER: It's hard to train people to become creative, adaptive problem solvers.
PETERSON: It's impossible! You can't do it! You can't do it! You can interfere with their cognitive ability, but you can't do that! The training doesn't work.
INTERVIEWER: It's not going to work in six months, but it could have worked in six years.
PETERSON: No, it doesn't work. Sorry, it doesn't work. The data on that is crystal clear.
[note that “one in ten” applies to a breeding group with an average IQ of 100]
”
”
Jordan B. Peterson
“
There is nothing greater than love invested in helping to feed the impoverished living in hunger.
”
”
Wayne Chirisa
“
Whoever knows the prosperity of peace, shall fear no poverty.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita
“
The united strength of a society is mirrored through the vulnerable community it feeds.
”
”
Wayne Chirisa
“
God longs for us to live in prosperity, not poverty; to experience His sufficiency, not bankruptcy.
”
”
Carlton U. Forbes (A Few Choice Words: A Collection of Inspirational and Motivational Discourses)
“
Reading can play the part of rescuing children who live the wretched life of extreme poverty – a life of deprivation kills children's ambition, so that they accept whatever comes their way. And here comes the part of reading, for it helps the children escape from their confined space and difficult time to unbounded space and stimulates them to
extend their vision until it coextends with all history. Reading is in this case not a component of life – it is life!
Indeed, poor and illiterate families' children need reading more than other children, so that they do not fall a prey to desperation, hopelessness, and narrow-mindedness.
”
”
Abdul Karim Bakkar (A Child Reads)
“
There is something far worse than poverty and fear. It is slavery ! I would trade all the wealth in the world to live a single moment of freedom.
Young Shivaji to his friends
(Quotes from "The King Shivaji Chronicles" )
”
”
Sandip Shelke
“
Let me describe how that same thought applies to the world of education. I recently joined a federal committee on incentives and accountability in public education. This is one aspect of social and market norms that I would like to explore in the years to come. Our task is to reexamine the “No Child Left Behind” policy, and to help find ways to motivate students, teachers, administrators, and parents. My feeling so far is that standardized testing and performance-based salaries are likely to push education from social norms to market norms. The United States already spends more money per student than any other Western society. Would it be wise to add more money? The same consideration applies to testing: we are already testing very frequently, and more testing is unlikely to improve the quality of education. I suspect that one answer lies in the realm of social norms. As we learned in our experiments, cash will take you only so far—social norms are the forces that can make a difference in the long run. Instead of focusing the attention of the teachers, parents, and kids on test scores, salaries, and competition, it might be better to instill in all of us a sense of purpose, mission, and pride in education. To do this we certainly can't take the path of market norms. The Beatles proclaimed some time ago that you “Can't Buy Me Love” and this also applies to the love of learning—you can't buy it; and if you try, you might chase it away. So how can we improve the educational system? We should probably first rethink school curricula, and link them in more obvious ways to social goals (elimination of poverty and crime, elevation of human rights, etc.), technological goals (boosting energy conservation, space exploration, nanotechnology, etc.), and medical goals (cures for cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc.) that we care about as a society. This way the students, teachers, and parents might see the larger point in education and become more enthusiastic and motivated about it. We should also work hard on making education a goal in itself, and stop confusing the number of hours students spend in school with the quality of the education they get. Kids can get excited about many things (baseball, for example), and it is our challenge as a society to make them want to know as much about Nobel laureates as they now know about baseball players. I am not suggesting that igniting a social passion for education is simple; but if we succeed in doing so, the value could be immense.
”
”
Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions)
“
Every man who has accumulated a great fortune, has recognized the existence of this stream of life. It consists of one’s thinking process. The positive emotions of thought form the side of the stream which carries one to fortune. The negative emotions form the side which carries one down to poverty.
”
”
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich (Start Motivational Books))
“
Many people in the United States believe that urban poverty is
a result of lack of motivation, welfare dependency, and a poor work ethic
(see “The ‘Culture of Poverty’: Poverty as Pathology,” p. 422); but Newman
challenges this vision as a gap in our understanding of urban environments
and inner-city economies. In these milieus she has found a broad array of
hard-working citizens for whom hard work does not pay off, who struggle to provide for their families, who are one paycheck away from financial
disaster.
”
”
Kenneth J. Guest (Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age)
“
Never forget the life experiences;
Aloneness and companionship.
Cold and warmth.
Hard times and good times.
Failure and success.
Pain and healing.
Planting and harvesting.
Poverty and prosperity.
Searching and finding.
Sorrow and happiness.
Tears and joy.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita
“
The invocation of motivation, of mindsets, of agency—they are powerful distractions from looking at poverty as linked to inequality.
”
”
You Yenn Teo (This Is What Inequality Looks Like)
“
Government has a power
to douse Crimes,
Corruption,Poverty
and Unemployment
just like Fire extinguish
with Water
Dadagari Jeelan
”
”
Dadagari Jeelan
“
Having a poverty mentality
leaves you focusing on all the
things you don’t have, when in
reality you probably already have
everything you need.
”
”
Domonique Bertolucci (The Happiness Code: Ten Keys to Being the Best You Can Be)
“
Wealth is a mindset; so is poverty, what you know or don't know, your perspective of life and beliefs have a direct connection to your net worth.
”
”
Lucas D. Shallua
“
We are from Stone age, Bronze age and Iron age, but now I think we are in the doomed age. We are too quick to cancel other people in life as if we are not making mistakes of our own. We are too quick to ruin someone's life and bring others down. We are too quick to insult others and cyber bully them. We are not afraid to lie just to destroy others image or reputation. We are doing everything for clout, even it means destroying everyone's happiness and life. We promote hate and division .
We rejoice when others fail, lose their jobs, lose what they worked hard for or accomplished. When they divorce or go through hard times or heartbreak. We laugh when others are not making it in life and are experiencing pain. We do all this In the name of poverty, that we are also suffering. I just hope you will chose to differ. I just hope you will treat people the same way you want to be treated in this doomed internet age.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
Are we free? Free as a bird in a tree?
Free to travel where we wanted to be?
Free to get whatever lies there ahead?
Free to say whatever comes to our head?
If we can honestly say we are free,
it’s needless to say that we are happy.
Indeed, happiness lies in being free;
the opposite being is poverty.
”
”
Rodolfo Martin Vitangcol
“
T. M. Freeman, Anderman, and Jensen (2007) found that a sense of belonging was positively associated with academic success and motivation.
”
”
Cia Verschelden (Bandwidth Recovery: Helping Students Reclaim Cognitive Resources Lost to Poverty, Racism, and Social Marginalization)
“
Most people accept a mechanistic worldview without thinking about it. They choose to live as little cogs inside a world they see as a huge factory. Their potential is shackled from early on and the limits to how much they can earn in their lifetime are already drawn. They think they need to control their greed and make sacrifices, and that only then can they overcome poverty.
”
”
Suh Yoon Lee (The Having: The Secret Art of Feeling and Growing Rich)
“
When God put “self” in man, all hell broke loose;
from “self” came all sorts of dirt and refuse.
If God could just remove the “self” from man,
the world be freed from all things inhuman.
But then without “self” how will the world be?
None might even care dressing their body.
Yes, we may have licked crimes and poverty,
but we’ve threatened man’s perpetuity.
”
”
Rodolfo Martin Vitangcol, The Pink Poetry
“
Doing unnecessary things waste time.
Buying unnecessary things waste money.
Doing both cause Poverty.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
Another critical religious motivation for reconsidering diet is concern for human suffering—out of compassion—in light of poverty, malnutrition, and starvation. . . . Not only do we damage the environment with our choice of cheese and cutlets—burdening future populations with pollutants, dead zones, and global climate change—but we also feed tons of precious grains to hundreds of thousands of cattle, pigs, chickens, and turkeys while fellow human beings go without food. Food energy is wasted when we cycle grains through anymals. Rather than breed hungry cattle and chickens to consume grains, we should stop breeding anymals and feed precious grains to those who are already starving. If we did not breed and consume anymals, billions of tons of grains could be redirected to feed hungry human beings, alleviating and/or preventing starvation worldwide.
”
”
Lisa Kemmerer (Animals and World Religions)
“
It takes a society to combat homelessness, and a strong nation to fight poverty.
”
”
Wayne Chirisa
“
I keep using the term “anticapitalist” as opposed to socialist or communist to include the people who publicly or privately question or loathe capitalism but do not identify as socialist or communist. I use “anticapitalist” because conservative defenders of capitalism regularly say their liberal and socialist opponents are against capitalism. They say efforts to provide a safety net for all people are “anticapitalist.” They say attempts to prevent monopolies are “anticapitalist.” They say efforts that strengthen weak unions and weaken exploitative owners are “anticapitalist.” They say plans to normalize worker ownership and regulations protecting consumers, workers, and environments from big business are “anticapitalist.” They say laws taxing the richest more than the middle class, redistributing pilfered wealth, and guaranteeing basic incomes are “anticapitalist.” They say wars to end poverty are “anticapitalist.” They say campaigns to remove the profit motive from essential life sectors like education, healthcare, utilities, mass media, and incarceration are “anticapitalist.” In doing so, these conservative defenders are defining capitalism. They define capitalism as the freedom to exploit people into economic ruin; the freedom to assassinate unions; the freedom to prey on unprotected consumers, workers, and environments; the freedom to value quarterly profits over climate change; the freedom to undermine small businesses and cushion corporations; the freedom from competition; the freedom not to pay taxes; the freedom to heave the tax burden onto the middle and lower classes; the freedom to commodify everything and everyone; the freedom to keep poor people poor and middle-income people struggling to stay middle income, and make rich people richer. The history of capitalism—of world warring, classing, slave trading, enslaving, colonizing, depressing wages, and dispossessing land and labor and resources and rights—bears out the conservative definition of capitalism.
”
”
Ibram X. Kendi (How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials))
“
.” They say wars to end poverty are “anticapitalist.” They say campaigns to remove the profit motive from essential life sectors like education, healthcare, utilities, mass media, and incarceration are “anticapitalist.” In doing so, these conservative defenders are defining capitalism. They define capitalism as the freedom to exploit people into economic ruin; the freedom to assassinate unions; the freedom to prey on unprotected consumers, workers, and environments; the freedom to value quarterly profits over climate change; the freedom to undermine small businesses and cushion corporations; the freedom from competition; the freedom not to pay taxes; the freedom to heave the tax burden onto the middle and lower classes; the freedom to commodify everything and everyone; the freedom to keep poor people poor and middle-income people struggling to stay middle income, and make rich people richer. The history of capitalism—of world warring, classing, slave trading, enslaving, colonizing, depressing wages, and dispossessing land and labor and resources and rights—bears out the conservative definition of capitalism.
”
”
Ibram X. Kendi (How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials))
“
The Word of the Supreme God has empowered the young to have dreams and visions. It has helped the old obtain ancient revelations. It has liberated the oppressed from captivity and enabled the poor to rise from the grip of poverty. His Word is a weapon of victory.
”
”
Gift Gugu Mona (The Infallible Word of God: 365 Inspirational Quotes)