Quotes About Poverty

“The poverty of the body, the poverty of the mind and the poverty of the Spirit represent the great impoverishment of the human family. For all the great talents that the Creator of all life has imbued within the human family remain lost and unknown, forgotten and restrained. If this were not the case, the human family would be at a very different stage of development and accomplishment in the world today.”

Material Poverty

“Every person is in the world to be a vehicle of communication and service. This is their greater purpose, but more than half the world is under the yoke of poverty and political and religious oppression. There are very few free nations in the world. People are circumstantially oppressed, politically oppressed, religiously oppressed, but the New Revelation is still for them, and for you—for the rich, for the poor, for the advantaged and for the disadvantaged, for the leaders of nations and for the refugees living at the edge of the city.”

"Most people do not even have enough to even live a balanced and harmonious life, so the more you want for yourself, the more you draw from the limited resources of the world, the more you deprive other people."

“So many of humanity’s future great leaders, scientists, physicians and inventors are bound by grinding poverty or oppressed in oppressive regimes, and their greater gifts will not be discovered and expressed as a result… Here is where poverty and oppression hold back the entire human race, diminish the prospects for the human family. This is why women must be free to assume positions of leadership and power and innovation, for if you suppress half of humanity, you deny all of humanity half of what it could create and produce that would be entirely beneficial.”

"How many saints have arisen from the slums and the wretched conditions of humanity? Poverty is a better breeding ground for sainthood than wealth and affluence."

“Oppression will continue. Poverty will continue. But certain people will escape. They will jump out of the fire. For them something special will happen inside. Whether their circumstances be oppressed by poverty or political restraints or whether their circumstances are affluent and easy and undemanding, they have begun to escape the poverty of the soul.”

"One of the great tragedies of human poverty, which is so rampant in the world today and which has the risk of growing ever greater in the future, is that the great assets of these people will never be discovered, will never be allowed to emerge. The great scientists, the great thinkers, the great politicians, the great religious leaders, the great servants of humanity will all be kept under the yoke of poverty."

"Many people will perish in the future, either through poverty and oppression or through ignorance and foolishness. Nations will be tempted to go to war with each other over the remaining resources, which will be ever more difficult to secure. And the grievances of humanity, so long standing, will flare here and there and everywhere."

The Poor

"The wealthy are far more deluded than the poor. They are far more distracted. They are far more seduced. They have far greater attachments to things of little value than do the poor."

“Do not curse your poverty. Build your connection to Knowledge. Do not hate your oppressors. Build your connection to Knowledge. Do not treat others with cruelty. Build your connection to Knowledge. Come back to God, to what God has placed within you, for you and for others. This is the way.”

“The great saints amongst you will come from the poor even more than the rich. The great inventors, the great physicians, the great engineers, the great craftsmen, the great politicians, the great leaders of humanity will so often come from the lowest ranks of society. History has proven this.”

"If you failed because of poverty and oppression, there is no judgment against you for this. There will only be the desire to return and try again."

"The richest amongst you must be prepared to take care of people, for there will be great human need in the future, greater than you have known, greater than that occurs even at the moment. Your richest person in the world should take care of thousands of people—feed them and provide for them. You have already destroyed their livelihood. It is impossible now for them to farm their land. Their local resources have been depleted, the land has been set to waste, so it is now your job to feed them and take care of them. That will be your job. And if you are to generate more wealth, it will be for this purpose."

"There must be a great sharing here, a great compassion here. Here you do not throw the poor some pittance, some little excess of your wealth. For there will be poverty of a very grave nature as nations fail, as agriculture fails, as people cannot afford their food, as essential energy becomes rare and inaccessible to many people. Take 20% of your wealth and spend it on taking care of people. That is what the future will require if humanity is to have stability and if humanity is to avoid the ravages of war and deprivation, hunger and starvation."

Spiritual Poverty

“It is not only individuals who are impoverished; it is all of humanity.”

“You are here to serve. You are here to give. You are here because you are rich with Knowledge. Regardless of your circumstance in life, your own sense of poverty will be banished forever as Knowledge arises within you, for there can be no sense of deprivation when Knowledge is being experienced and expressed. This is the promise of this Program of preparation.”

“This deeper need does not mean you have no other needs, for you will still have some practical needs, psychological needs and emotional needs. But to fulfill the deeper need of the soul means that you have given satisfaction and fulfillment to your essential nature here. You could acquire wealth. You can be devoted to beauty. You could be politically involved. You can have a deeply engaging social life. You can have all the appearances of success in the world. But if the deeper need of your soul remains undiscovered and unfulfilled, you will still be impoverished and the feelings of emptiness will haunt you, driving you further into your outer pursuits as you try to mitigate or satisfy this deeper need within yourself. But you cannot do it, because it can only be fulfilled by responding to the power and presence of Knowledge and having it guide you to the discovery, the experience and the expression of your greater purpose.”

“You only have two choices, for you can only serve Knowledge or that which attempts to replace Knowledge. Since nothing can really replace Knowledge, a desire to serve that which replaces Knowledge is the desire to serve nothing, to be nothing and to have nothing. This is what we mean when we speak of poverty. It is a state of serving nothing, being nothing and having nothing.”

“You may pray urgently to God for salvation, for guidance, for redemption and for protection, but God has already given you a perfect guiding intelligence. Whether you are a part of a religion or not, whether you practice a faith tradition or not, wherever you live, whatever your culture, whatever your financial position, you have the great endowment living within you.”

"Goaded by the fear of poverty and deprivation, people are driven to seek endless amounts of wealth and reassurance for themselves. This is pervasive in the world. This is the condition of the human family. This is the “state of the union” for the human family.

"And all of the addictions, all of the depression, all of the poor mental and physical health you see around you is a product of this desperation and this disassociation that people have with themselves and with the greater purpose that has brought them into the world."

"Understand, then, the meaning of impoverishment. Understand, then, the meaning of wealth. Do not think that those who possess more objects than you are in any way wealthier than you are, for without Knowledge they are impoverished and will acquire things only to offset their misery and uncertainty. Thus, their impoverishment is compounded by their acquisition."

See also

Quotes About Wealth

War

Further Study

What Happens After Death (July 11, 2008)

The New Message for the Impoverished and Oppressed (April 18, 2008)

The Age of Women (November 14, 2007)

Wisdom from The Greater Community: Volume 2, Chapter 22, "Money"