I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the economic and social systems that we have designed for ourselves; the institutions and concepts that make up that system; the policies that we pursue.

We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before.

How did we define “poverty-free”? After interviewing many borrowers about what a poverty-free life meant to them, we developed a set of ten indicators that our staff and outside evaluators could use to measure whether a family in rural Bangladesh lived a poverty-free life. These indicators are: (1) having a house with a tin roof; (2) having beds or cots for all members of the family; (3) having access to safe drinking water; (4) having access to a sanitary latrine; (5) having all school-age children attending school; (6) having sufficient warm clothing for the winter; (7) having mosquito nets; (8) having a home vegetable garden; (9) having no food shortages, even during the most difficult time of a very difficult year; and (10) having sufficient income-earning opportunities for all adult members of the family. We will be monitoring these criteria on our own and are inviting local and international researchers to help us track our successes and setbacks as we head toward our goal of a poverty-free Bangladesh.

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!

On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

In the best possible future, there will be no war, no famine, no crime, no sickness, no oppression, no fear, no limits, no shame… …and nothing to do.

All it takes to get poor people out of poverty is for us to create an enabling environment for them. Once the poor can unleash their energy and creativity, poverty will disappear very quickly.

We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.

Anticipate charity by preventing poverty.

Bio-survival anxiety will only permanently disappear when world-wide wealth has reached a level, and a distribution, where, without totalitarianism, everyone has enough tickets.

The Buddhist version of poverty is a situation where you have nothing to contribute.

"For half of the world's population, roughly three billion people around the world living on less than two dollars a day, an election is at best a means, not an end; a starting point, not deliverance. These people are looking less for an "electocracy" than for the basic elements that for most of us define a decent life — food, shelter, electricity, basic health care, education for their children, and the ability to make their way through life without having to endure corruption, violence, or arbitrary power."

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).

No one has ever become poor by giving.