Quotes by Muhammad Yunus

..things are never as complicated as they seem. It is only our arrogance that prompts us to find unnecessarily complicated answers to simple problems.

I learned that things are never as complicated as we imagine them to be. It is only our arrogance which seeks to find complicated answers to simple problems.

Today, the concept of business is to make money. Making money is the name of the business.

There is the expression of selfishness and there is the expression of selflessness - but economists or theoreticians never touched that part. They said: Go and become a philanthropist. I said, No, I can do that in the business world, create a different kind of business - a business based on selflessness.

Making money is a happiness. And thats a great incentive. Making other people happy is a super-happiness.

We have a list of human rights - right to food, right to shelter, right to health, right to education, many such items which are considered and accepted as bill of rights. These are to be insured to people. So all nations, all societies try to do that.

Unprecedented technological capabilities combined with unlimited human creativity have given us tremendous power to take on intractable problems like poverty, unemployment, disease, and environmental degradation. Our challenge is to translate this extraordinary potential into meaningful change.

All human beings are born entrepreneurs. Some get a chance to unleash that capacity. Some never got the chance, never knew that he or she has that capacity.

Good economic theory must give the people the chance to use their talents to build their own lives. We must get away from the traditional route where the rich will do the business and the poor will depend on private or public charity.

By simply capitalizing on core strengths and knowledge, companies and entrepreneurs can engage in an emerging business model that will enable them to create - and demonstrate - real, sustainable social impact in society.

In my experience, poor people are the worlds greatest entrepreneurs. Every day, they must innovate in order to survive. They remain poor because they do not have the opportunities to turn their creativity into sustainable income.

Today, if you look at financial systems around the globe, more than half the population of the world - out of six billion people, more than three billion - do not qualify to take out a loan from a bank. This is a shame.

Poverty is unnecessary.

The Grameen clinics prove that a medical system for the poor can be almost entirely self-supporting, and we hope we can make it fully self sufficient so we can expand it across Bangladesh.

Truly affordable but high-quality health care tools and services are the only means by which quality health care can be provided to all.

Engaging in social business is beneficial to a company because it leverages on business competencies to address social issues, involves one-time investment with sustainable results, and produces other positive effects such as employee motivation and improved organizational culture.

While technology is important, its what we do with it that truly matters.

Civilization has given us enormous successes: going to the moon, technology. But then this is the civilisation that took us to debt, environmental crisis, every single crisis. We need a civilization where we say goodbye to these things.

I went to the bank and proposed that they lend money to the poor people. The bankers almost fell over.

I made a list of people who needed just a little bit of money. And when the list was complete, there were 42 names. The total amount of money they needed was $27. I was shocked.