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I've been working on issues of poverty for more than 20 years, and so it's ironic that the problem that and question that I most grapple with is how you actually define poverty. What does it mean?
Jacqueline Novogratz
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Defining poverty is complex and requires deep reflection.

Jacqueline Novogratz highlights the irony in her extensive experience with poverty that despite two decades of work, she still grapples with what poverty truly means. This suggests that poverty is not merely a lack of resources, but a nuanced concept that involves various social, economic, and emotional dimensions.

Themes

PovertyDefinitionSocial IssuesExperienceReflection

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about social justice, I would reference Novogratz's quote to emphasize the complexities of poverty.

More from Jacqueline Novogratz

May each of you live lives of immersion. They won't necessarily be easy lives. But in the end, it is all that will sustain us.
Jacqueline NovogratzRead
When people gain income, they gain choice, and that is fundamental to dignity.
Jacqueline NovogratzRead
The poor don't live in functional market economies as the rest of us do, but in political economies where corruption and broken systems extend from local government to moneylenders.
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Each of us can work to change a small portion of events. And it's in the total of all those acts that the history of this generation will be written.
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Don't let people tell you to do it this way. You are on the verge of figuring out hybrid models -- with companies and nonprofits, markets, government, crowd-sourced philanthropy. The capitalist system as we know it is not working.
Jacqueline NovogratzRead
Traditional charity and aid are never going to solve the problems of poverty.
Jacqueline NovogratzRead

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