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
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?
Interpretation
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.
In practice
In a discussion about social justice, I would reference Novogratz's quote to emphasize the complexities of poverty.
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.
When people gain income, they gain choice, and that is fundamental to dignity.
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.
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.
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.
Traditional charity and aid are never going to solve the problems of poverty.
It is almost impossible to exaggerate the proneness of the human mind to take miracles as evidence, and to seek for miracles as evidence.
India has 2,000,000 gods and worships them all. In religion, all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.
The sad truth is, there's more Walter White in me than I'd care to admit, because if I truly was as kind as people think I am, I wouldn't be able to write Walter White.
Stubborn selfishness leads otherwise good people to fight over herds, patches of sand, and strippings of milk. All this results from what the Lord calls coveting "the drop," while neglecting the "more weighty matters." (D&C 117:8) Myopic selfishness magnifies a mess of pottage and makes thirty pieces of silver look like a treasure trove. In our intense acquisitiveness, we forget Him who once said, "What is property unto me?"
A great fortune is a great slavery.
I have no interest in romanticizing poor black people, having been one of them myself in our beloved hometown of Detroit.
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