Muhammad Yunus Quotes about Poverty

Poverty is not created by poor people. It is produced by our failure to create institutions to support human capabilities.

In the future the question will not be, "Are people credit-worthy", but rather, "Are banks people-worthy?"

Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations, hostility and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society.

We have to get out of this mindset that the rich will do the business and the poor will have the charity.

Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor.

I should never seek a job in my life, my mission in life is to create jobs. I am not a job seeker, I am a job giver.

I am proposing to create another kind of business, based on "selflessness" that is in all of us. I am calling it social business.

Poverty is unnecessary.

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

I think, social business is the most logical thing to do. If we had done that, we could reduce all the problems we have.

We have done some of these in Bangladesh. Whenever I see a problem, I immediately go and create a company. That's what I did all my life.

The only place where poverty should be is in museums.

I was trained to become an economist and I finished my work and I was teaching and did my PhD so I thought I did that. I prepared myself for that kind of road. But then I realized that I had not learned enough to solve the problem of poverty. So I distanced myself from the things that I learned and tried to learn anew about people.

So i say, change the base! If you change the base, anybody will be as tall as anybody else! My belief is poverty is not caused by poor ppl. Poverty is caused by the system. Poverty is caused by the policies that we pursue.

What good does the theory [of economics] do if it is not working for people?

I founded Grameen Bank to provide loans to those considered traditionally unbankable. Grameen Bank works with the poorest and often illiterate, providing uncollateralized micro-loans for tiny business enterprises by which they can lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

Credit is a human right that should be treated as a human right. If credit can be accepted as a human right, then all other human rights will be easier to establish.

The current financial crisis makes it very clears that the system that we have isn't really working, and this is the right time for us to undo things and build them in a new way.

A culture that holds people back should and can be changed.