Quotes by Muhammad Yunus

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!

The process of breaking down fear was always my greatest challenge and it was made easier by the careful work and gentle voices of my female workers.

...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.

UN studies conducted in more than forty developing countries show that the birth rate falls as women gain equality... I believe income-earning opportunities that empower poor women ... will have more impact on curbing population growth that the current system of encouraging family planning practices through intimidation tactics.. Family planning should be left to the family.

Changes are products of intensive efforts.

The system we have built refuses to recognize people. Only credit cards are recognized. Drivers licenses are recognized. But not people. People havent any use for faces anymore, it seems. They are busy looking at your credit card, your drivers licence, your social security number. If a drivers licence is more reliable than the face I wear, then why do I have a face?

To me, the poor are like Bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a six-inch deep flower pot, you get a perfect replica of the tallest tree, but it is only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted; only the soil-base you provided was inadequate.Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong with their seeds. Only society never gave them a base to grow on.

I’m encouraging young people to become social business entrepreneurs and contribute to the world, rather than just making money. Making money is no fun. Contributing to and changing the world is a lot more fun.

Once poverty is gone, well need to build museums to display its horrors to future generations. Theyll wonder why poverty continued so long in human society - how a few people could live in luxury while billions dwelt in misery, deprivation and despair.

People.. were poor not because they were stupid or lazy. They worked all day long, doing complex physical tasks. They were poor because the financial institution in the country did not help them widen their economic base.

If you go out into the real world, you cannot miss seeing that the poor are poor not because they are untrained or illiterate but because they cannot retain the returns of their labor. They have no control over capital, and it is the ability to control capital that gives people the power to rise out of poverty.

When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding the solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences.

The fact that the poor are alive is clear proof of their ability.

Even today we dont pay serious attention to the issue of poverty, because the powerful remain relatively untouched by it. Most people distance themselves from the issue by saying that if the poor worked harder, they wouldnt be poor.

Poverty does not belong in civilized human society. Its proper place is in a museum. Thats where it will be.

When a destitute mother starts earning an income, her dreams of success invariably center around her children. A womans second priority is the household. She wants to buy utensils, build a stronger roof, or find a bed for herself and her family. A man has an entirely different set of priorities. When a destitute father earns extra income, he focuses more attention on himself. Thus money entering a household through a woman brings more benefits to the family as a whole.

What I did not know yet about hunger, but would find out over the next twenty-one years, was that brilliant theorists of economics do not find it worthwhile to spend time discussing issues of poverty and hunger. They believe that these will be resolved when general economic prosperity increases. These economists spend all their talents detailing the process of development and prosperity, but rarely reflect on the origin and development of poverty and hunger. A a result, poverty continues.

Th direct elimination of elimination of poverty should be the objective of all development aid. Development should be viewed as a human rights issue, not as a question of simply increasing the gross national product (GNP).

I believe that the emphasis on curbing population growth diverts attention from the more vital issue of pursuing policies that allow the population to take care of itself.

Like navigation markings in unknown waters, definitions of poverty need to be distinctive and unambiguous. A definition that is not precise is as bad as no definition at all.