Aid Quotes

“A fine glass vase goes from treasure to trash, the moment it is broken. Fortunately, something else happens to you and me. Pick up your pieces. Then, help me gather mine.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“In the land where excellence is commended, not envied, where weakness is aided, not mocked, there is no question as to how its inhabitants are all superhuman.”
― Criss Jami, Venus in Arms

“I have one life and one chance to make it count for something . . . I'm free to choose what that something is, and the something I've chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort. My faith demands -- this is not optional -- my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”
― Jimmy Carter

“Do not give them a candle to light the way, teach them how to make fire instead. That is the meaning of enlightenment.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“I learned a long time ago with you that folks who were trying to be kind would rather do it with a macaroni-and-cheese bake than any personal involvement. You hand off a serving dish and you've done your job - no need to get personally involved, and your conscience is clean. Food is the currency of aid.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care

“Nobody knows how many North Koreans have died or are dying in the famine—some estimates by foreign-aid groups run as high as three million in the period from 1995 to 1998 alone—but the rotund, jowly face of Kim Il Sung still beams down contentedly from every wall, and the 58-year-old son looks as chubby as ever, even as his slenderized subjects are mustered to applaud him.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays

“Without an informed electorate, politicians will continue to use the bottom billion merely for photo opportunities, rather than promoting real transformation.”
― Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

“Change in the societies at the very bottom must come predominantly from within; we cannot impose it on them.”
― Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

“I have learned that I, we, are a dollar-a-day people (which is terrible, they say, because a cow in Japan is worth $9 a day). This means that a Japanese cow would be a middle class Kenyan... a $9-a-day cow from Japan could very well head a humanitarian NGO in Kenya. Massages are very cheap in Nairobi, so the cow would be comfortable.”
― Binyavanga Wainaina

“Remember, aid cannot achieve the end of poverty. Only homegrown development base on the dynamism of individuals and firms in free markets can do that.”
― William Easterly, The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, miss. Charitable people like yourself saved my life. But I wish they’d thought a bit more about what I was to do with it, once it was safe.”
― Laura Purcell, The Corset

“... money should not be spent according to what the West considers the most dramatic kind of suffering.”
― William Easterly

“I am happy that I can aid those admirable men, both living and dead, who by their pens or their tongues have aided the great cause of human liberty and universal happiness.”
― James Watson

“When you can't find the light, be the light.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“The aid program that I am suggesting must not be used by the wealthy nations as a surreptitious means to control the poor nations. Such an approach would lead to a new form of paternalism and a neocolonialism which no self-respecting nation could accept. Ultimately, foreign aid programs must be motivated by a compassionate and committed effort to wipe poverty, ignorance and disease from the face of the earth. Money devoid of genuine empathy is like salt devoid of savor, good for nothing except to be trodden under foot of men.

The West must enter into the program with humility and penitence and a sober realization that everything will not always “go our way.” It cannot be forgotten that the Western powers were but yesterday the colonial masters. The house of the West is far from in order, and its hands are far from clean.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

“There is an aid for helping us to learn how to distinguish between the ego way and the higher way. It is pain. The ego way inevitably leads to pain, even if it seems to temporarily satisfy. The higher way does not. It works. And it works harmoniously. It brings the sort of success that has no bitter after-taste. It is not manipulative. It doesn’t play one person against another. It doesn’t feed anyone’s fantasies. It is honest and it protects the good.”
― Donna Goddard, Faith

“Private philanthropy might just be able to make United Nations agencies, international organizations, and government more effective in a way that just increasing taxes on billionaires can't.”
― Raj Kumar, The Business of Changing the World: How Billionaires, Tech Disrupters, and Social Entrepreneurs Are Transforming the Global Aid Industry

“When a man sets his heart to a fulfil his mission with all his might, invisible forces comes to his aid.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“A state that is already economically so badly off that it relies on eliminating the relatively insignificant percentage of its incurable citizens in order to save on [resources] -such a state has already reached the end economically.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything

“The Negro today is not struggling for some abstract, vague rights, but for concrete and prompt improvement in his way of life. What will it profit him to be able to send his children to an integrated school if the family income is insufficient to buy them school clothes? What will he gain by being permitted to move to an integrated neighborhood if he cannot afford to do so because he is unemployed or has a low-paying job with no future? During the lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, a nightclub comic observed that, had the demonstrators been served, some of them could not have paid for the meal. Of what advantage is it to the Negro to establish that he can be served in integrated restaurants, or accommodated in integrated hotels, if he is bound to the kind of financial servitude which will not allow him to take a vacation or even to take his wife out to dine? Negroes must not only have the right to go into any establishment open to the public, but they must also be absorbed into our economic system in such a manner that they can afford to exercise that right.

The struggle for rights is, at bottom, a struggle for opportunities. In asking for something special, the Negro is not seeking charity. He does not want to languish on welfare rolls any more than the next man. He does not want to be given a job he cannot handle. Neither, however, does he want to be told that there is no place where he can be trained to handle it. So with equal opportunity must come the practical, realistic aid which will equip him to seize it. Giving a pair of shoes to a man who has not learned to walk is a cruel jest.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

“Donating a dollar from two dollars is bigger donation than donating a dollar from hundred dollars.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Little assistance is better than the largest intention.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Without any aid, he does his work.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Most people aren’t lazy; they just need a little push to get going.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Before You Doubt Yourself: Pep Talks and other Crucial Discussions

“In place of offering just advice and building hope, offer actual help and build trust.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“In times of emergency, the holy angels provides divine aid.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“The Maker made mankind without any aid.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“The biggest problem you and I have to deal with is choosing the right thoughts.”
― Joe Hart, Take Command

“Indefinite dependency on aid has gradually become the default long-term response to refugees.”
― Alexander Betts, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System

“The façade of Western altruism often obscures the reality of exploitation, where the promise of aid is used as a tool for extending influence.”
― Jibril Mohamed Ahmed