The Affluent Society not only changed the way the country viewed itself, but gave new phrases to the language: Conventional wisdom, the bland leading the bland, private opulence and public squalor.
Poverty is not just a lack of money; it is not having the capability to realize one’s full potential as a human being.
Economic growth without investment in human development is unsustainable – and unethical.
Human development, as an approach, is concerned with what I take to be the basic development idea: namely, advancing the richness of human life, rather than the richness of the economy in which human beings live, which is only a part of it.
Imparting education not only enlightens the receiver, but also broadens the giver – the teachers, the parents, the friends.
I believe that virtually all the problems in the world come from inequality of one kind or another.
Progress is more plausibly judged by the reduction of deprivation than by the further enrichment of the opulent.
We need to ask the moral questions: Do I have a right to be rich? And do I have a right to be content living in a world with so much poverty and inequality? These questions motivate us to view the issue of inequality as central to human living.
Poverty is the deprivation of opportunity.
The success of a society is to be evaluated primarily by the freedoms that members of the society enjoy.
A society can be Pareto optimal and still perfectly disgusting.
There are Muslims of all kinds. The idea of closing them into a single identity is wrong.
Human ordeals thrive on ignorance. To understand a problem with clarity is already half way towards solving it.
Sometimes the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty.
Freedoms are not only the primary ends of development, they are also among its principal means.
Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough food to eat.