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.
If we want to help poor people out, one way to do that is to help them explore and use their own capability. Human being is full of capacity full of capability, is a wonderful creation. But many people never get a chance to explore that, never, no that she nor he has that.
I was an economist now turning into a human being – as if these are two different things. I don’t know but I did that and then I had no vision.
Poverty is not created by poor people. It is produced by our failure to create institutions to support human capabilities.
Access to quality education has enabled me to reach far beyond the Bangladeshi village I grew up in.
Long live Grameen Bank. Let the power of poor women prevail.
Each of us has much more hidden inside us than we have had a chance to explore. Unless we create an environment that enables us to discover the limits of our potential, we will never know what we have inside of us.
Human creativity is unlimited. It is the capacity of humans to make things happen which didn’t happen before. Creativity provides the key to solving our social and economic problems.
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.
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.
The fact that the poor are alive is clear proof of their ability.
If I could be useful to another human being, even for a day, that would be a great thing. It would be greater than all the big thoughts I could have at the university.
I was teaching in one of the universities while the country was suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I felt very helpless. As an economist, I had no tool in my tool box to fix that kind of situation.
I went to the bank and proposed that they lend money to the poor people. The bankers almost fell over.
Poverty does not belong in civilized human society. Its proper place is in a museum. That’s where it will be.
In a bird’s eye view you tend to survey everything and decide on a particular point, then you swoop down and pick it up. In a worms eye view you don’t have that advantage of looking at everything.
They said, we have education, but what about jobs? So I started telling them, you should be taking a pledge, and the pledge should be: ‘I’m not a job seeker; I’m a job giver.’ Prepare yourself to be a job giver.
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.
Changes are products of intensive efforts.
The only place where poverty should be is in museums.