Poverty Contrast Quotes

There are literally billions of people on the planet who live in an unimaginable poverty that's not in any way different from the plight of the people in Orchid. And you can't have the splendor of Rodeo Drive without the sweatshops of Indonesia; those two things go hand in hand.

Dignity and plenty instead of humility and poverty.

I ate better in Liberia than I did in Ohio.

The contrast of the world that we live in and the world that is here in Aspen and the world inhabited by women who have no resources, little or no, very few resources - huge disparity.

One of the reasons I got really fat when I left home was because I thought rich people ate white bread and Spam. I also thought they could get processed meals, because we never did, so that was exciting.

I liked being on stage because it gave me a reason to be around people. The other great thing about acting is it allows you to imagine circumstances different from your own. I was a poor Bay Area kid getting to pretend to be a Russian aristocrat.

The thing that surprised me the most is just how much money women that weren't rich were paying for their hair. When you're in a beauty parlor in Harlem next to abandoned buildings and somebody's paying five grand for a weave, that's a bit much.

I grew up in Northern Ireland, in the middle of nowhere, and when you are poor, you are really poor. And when you are rich, you are very rich. This is not a new phenomenon.

A lot of people don't know the culture shock of how you can be in a rich area and then be in poverty. People don't know how different it is over there.

The lifestyle of many of our colleagues has been very pompous. They conduct weddings and birthdays in such an ostentatious manner that it pains me a lot. It appears that they are making fun of our commitment to the poor.

Poverty, to be picturesque, should be rural. Suburban misery is as hideous as it is pitiable.

When I was young, we always went to our posh cousins at Christmas. My dad made sure we had new shoes and clean clothes - he was really proud - and that's why I felt different from everyone living around me. We had the first television on the estate, the first fridge.

Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity, and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness, and ugliness.

The haggardness of poverty is everywhere seen contrasted with the sleekness of wealth, the exhorted labour of some compensating for the idleness of others, wretched hovels by the side of stately colonnades, the rags of indigence blended with the ensigns of opulence; in a word, the most useless profusion in the midst of the most urgent wants.

In 1962, when I was 19, I visited India. With introductions from people involved in the U.S. civil rights movement, I was able to visit with several of the leading Gandhians there. The hundred-to-one difference in average per capita income between America and India at the time was a stark reality for the people who became my friends there.