Hunger Awareness | End Hunger Network

Voices from the Past

Public understanding of hunger has been shaped over time by writers, advocates, scholars, faith leaders, and public figures who helped bring the issue into view long before it was widely discussed. These voices reflect earlier moments in the national conversation, when hunger was named, examined, and challenged in ways that still inform how the issue is understood today. Preserving these perspectives helps ground current work in historical context and reminds us that progress has always depended on people willing to speak clearly, persistently, and publicly about hunger.

Authors

James Baldwin, American Novelist, Essayist and Playwright (1924-1987) | Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.
The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.

Pearl S. Buck, Author and Activist (1892-1973) Nobel Prize Winner for Literature East Wind West Wind, The Good Earth

Hunger makes a thief of any man.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, British poet (1772-1834) | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan

All the great — the permanently great — things that have been achieved in the world have been so achieved by individuals, working from the instinct of genius or goodness.

Emily Dickinson, American poet (1830-1886) | My Life Had Stood...a Loaded Gun, Hope is the Thing with Feathers

If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain.
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in vain.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher and poet (1803-1882) | Nature, Ode to Beauty, Self-Reliance

Poverty demoralizes.
Genius and virtue, like diamonds, are best plain set — set in lead, set in poverty. The greatest man in history was poor.
God said, I am tired of kings,
I suffer them no more;
Up to my ear the morning brings
The outrage of the poor.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, American poet and physician (1809-1894) | Old Ironsides, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table

I find the greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it — but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.

Elbert Hubbard, American author and publisher (1856-1913) | A Message to Garcia

Do unto others as though you were the others.
One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
Human service is the highest form of self-interest.

Christopher Isherwood, British/American novelist and playwright (1904-1986) | Goodbye to Berlin, The Last of Mr. Norris

By helping yourself, you are helping mankind. By helping mankind, you are helping yourself. That's the law of all spiritual progress.

Samuel Johnson, British dictionarist (1709-1784) | Dictionary of the English Language

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness. It certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable and others extremely difficult.
Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Juvenal, Roman poet (AD 1st-2nd Century) | Satires

Thinks any human ills outside his concern? It's this that sets us apart from dumb brutes, it's why we alone have a soul that's worthy of reverence, why we're imbued with a divine potential....
When the world was still new, our common Creator granted the breath of life alone, but on us he further bestowed sovereign reason, the impulse to aid another.

Walter Lippmann, Newspaper columnist, Herald Tribune (1889-1974)

We are living through the closing chapters of the established and traditional way of life. We are in the early beginnings of a struggle to remake our civilization.
It is not a good time for politicians. It is a time for prophets and leaders and explorers and inventors and pioneers, and for those who are willing to plant trees for their children to sit under.
He who captures the symbols by which public feeling is for the moment contained, controls by that much the approaches of public policy.

George Orwell, British author (1903-1950) | Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four

It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it.

William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), American author (1862-1910) | The Gift of the Magi, The Ransom of Red Chief

Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving.

Carl Sandburg, American poet and author (1878-1967) 2-time Pulitzer Prize winner | Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, Chicago Poems

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.

George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist (1856-1950) Nobel Prize in Literature winner | Pygmalion, Saint Joan, Arms and the Man

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in the world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they don't find them, make them.
Man is not God's last word: God can still create. If you cannot do His work, He will produce some being who can.
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrapheap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish, selfish, little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright (1854-1900) | The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Woman of No Importance

It is personalities, not principles, that move the age.
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
When you are down and out, something always turns up — and it's usually the noses of your friends.

Cultural Leaders & Innovators

Harry Chapin, Singer and songwriter (1942-1981) Co-founder of World Hunger Year (WHY), Congressional Gold Medal recipient

What we're trying to do is raise an attitude about hunger in this country the way there was about slavery in 1850. There's no economic basis for hunger, just as there wasn't for slavery — to put the moral issues aside for a minute. But there's a vacuum, hungry people don't have power.
Being a rock star is pointless. It's garbage. It's the most self-indulgent thing I can think of. I've got nothing against selling out. But let me sell out for something that counts. Not so Harry Chapin can be Number 1 with a bullet, but so I can leave here thinking I mattered.
We all have the potential to move the world, and the world is ready to be moved.
When in doubt, do something.
And I dream that something's coming
And it's not just in the wind
It's more than just tomorrow
It's more than where we've been
It offers me a promise
It's telling me, begin!

Dorothy Day, American Social Activist (1897-1980) Founder of the Catholic Worker movement

As you come to know the seriousness of our situation — the war, the racism, the poverty in the world — you come to realize it is not going to be changed just by words or demonstrations. It's a question of living your life in a drastically different way.

John Denver, Singer, Songwriter and Actor (1943-1997) Presidential End Hunger Award recipient, Emmy and Grammy Award winner

I'm a global citizen. I've created that for myself, and I don't want to step away from it. I want to work in whatever I do — my music, my writing, my performing, my commitments, my home and personal life — in a way that is directed towards a world in balance, a world that creates a better quality of life for all people.
For all its history, humanity has lived in the world as if the survival of each of us depended on our getting what we needed and keeping others from having it. It is clear now that the survival of each of us as individuals depends on our sharing with each other. If resources are limited, my survival is assured only to the degree that I provide for you and me, not to the extent that I take for me and mine and deprive you. This, too, we have in fact always known.
There is a man who is my brother;
I just don’t know his name,
But I know his home and his family
Because I know we feel the same,
And it hurts me when he’s hungry
And when his children cry.
I too am a father
And that little one is mine.
Imagine what it might do to the human spirit to know that we have conquered hunger as a worldwide societal issue? What an incredible thing. And I believe it came out of some people who made a commitment that we will make the end of hunger an idea whose time has come, and we will commit ourselves to that endeavor.

Isadora Duncan, Innovative American dancer (1877-1927)

So long as little children are allowed to suffer, there is no justice in the world.

R. Buckminster Fuller, American architect, philosopher, futurist, and inventor (1895-1983) | Spaceship Earth, Dymaxion

For the first time in history it is now possible to take care of everybody at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. Only ten years ago the "more with less" technology reached the point where this could be done. All humanity now has the option to become enduringly successful.
I see in America, for the first time in history, the majority begins to be "haves," rather than "have-nots." This would bring about a different way of looking at things. Those who were "haves" would probably find much more information than they ever had before, found they really couldn’t enjoy that "have-ness" as long as they had awareness of the dire "have-not-ness" of the others. At any rate, this would be a critical point where, for the first time, you would not have the majority rising up to pull down the top. You might really have, then, the tendency of the majority, being on top, to pull the bottom up. This seemed to be, probably, a very new relationship.
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Indian non-violent revolutionary leader (1869-1948) Nobel Peace Prize winner

To believe that what has not yet occurred in history will not occur at all is to argue disbelief in the dignity of man.
There can be no rule of God in the present state of iniquitous inequalities in which a few roll in riches and the masses do not get enough to eat.
All progress is gained through mistakes and their rectification. No good comes fully fashioned, out of God's hand, but has to be carved out through repeated experiments and repeated failures by ourselves. This is the law of individual growth. The same law controls social and political evolution also. The right to err, which means the freedom to try experiments, is the universal condition of all progress. Recall the face of the poorest and the most helpless man whom you may have seen and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he be able to gain anything by it? Will it restore him to control over his own life and destiny?
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some service or another. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and it will make not only for our own happiness, but that of the world at large.
First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.

Raul Julia, Actor and Anti-Hunger Activist (1940-1994) Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner

For the first time in history, we have the means, the knowledge, the agricultural know-how and the economic resources to end hunger.
A hero is someone who goes beyond himself to make a difference for other people.
Before anything else, I am a human being. It is time to put all that cultural and nationalistic kind of flag-waving in the background. It is now time for everyone on the planet to be human beings together.
My commitment to end hunger inspires my acting. When I'm tired, disgusted, bored or just don't feel like it, I remember that the more successful I become the more of a difference I can make.
Be willing to fail. Failure is part of success. Don't be afraid to make a fool of yourself. Take risks. It opens you to greatness.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil rights activist (1929-1968) Nobel Peace Prize winner

Why should there be hunger and deprivation in any land, in any city, at any table, when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life? There is no deficit in human resources. The deficit is in human will.
Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.
We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed as they make their journey through life. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.
The poorest people in our country today, on the whole, are working every day. But they are earning wages so low that they cannot begin to function in the mainstream of the economic life of our nation. We have thousands and thousands of people working on full-time jobs, with part-time incomes.
There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will.
The best way to solve any problem is to remove its cause.
Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.

John Lennon, British Singer and Songwriter, Artist, Activist (1940-1980) Co-Founder of The Beatles

It's quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don't expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself.
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.

Maria Montessori, First Female Italian Physician and Education innovator (1870-1952) Founder of the Montessori Educational Association

The greatest step forward in human evolution was made when society began to help the weak and the poor, instead of oppressing and despising them.
Within the child lies the fate of the future.

Religious Leaders

William Ellery Channing, Founder of the American Unitarian Association (1780-1842)

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.

Jesus of Nazareth, Jewish Itinerant Preacher and Founder of Christianity (AD 1st Century)

When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. — Matthew 6:3-4
If you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. — Matthew 10:21
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. — Matthew 25:35
The King will reply, "Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." — Matthew 25:40
Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. — Luke 6:20
Everyone to whom much is given, of him will much be required. — Luke 12:48

Moses, Hebrew Liberator, Prophet and Lawgiver (circa 1400 BCE)

When you reap your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow; that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. — Deuteronomy 24:19

Muhammad, Prophet of Islam and Communicator of The Qur'an (569-632 CE)

The most excellent of alms is that of a man of small property, which he has earned by labor, and from which he gives as much as he is able.

St. Francis of Assisi, Founder of the Franciscan Order (1181-1226) | Canticle of the Sun, Peace Prayer

...for it is in giving that we receive.
If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.
Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
Preach the Gospel all the time. If necessary, use words.

The Talmud, compilation of teachings and discussions that form the foundation of Jewish religious law and theology

Charity knows neither race nor creed.
The greatest charity is to enable the poor to earn a living.
When a man has compassion for others, God has compassion for him.
He that feeds the hungry feeds God also.
Let the poor be members of your household.

John Wesley, Founder of Methodism (1703-1791)

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

Economists & Scientists

Albert Einstein, Physicist and Pacifist (1879-1955) Nobel Prize in Physics winner

There is no greater satisfaction for a just and well-meaning person than the knowledge that he has devoted his best energies to the service of the good cause.

Michael Harrington, Political Scientist and Author (1928-1989) | The Other America: Poverty in the United States

The other America, the America of poverty, is hidden today in a way that it never was before. Its millions are socially invisible to the rest of us.... The poor are increasingly slipping out of the very experience and consciousness of the nation.
Poverty should be defined psychologically in terms of those whose place in the society is such that they are internal exiles who, almost inevitably, develop attitudes of defeat and pessimism and who are therefore excluded from taking advantage of new opportunities.
People who are much too sensitive to demand of cripples that they run races ask of the poor that they get up and act just like everybody else in society.

Julian Huxley, British Biologist (1887-1975) First Director of UNESCO

Man's responsibility and destiny is to be an agent for the rest of the world in the job of realizing its inherent potentialities as fully as possible.
It is as if man had been suddenly appointed managing director of the biggest business of all, the business of evolution — appointed without being asked if he wanted it, and without proper warning and preparation.
What is more, he can't refuse the job. Whether he wants to or not, whether he is conscious of what he is doing or not, he is in point of fact determining the future direction of evolution on this earth.
That is his inescapable destiny, and the sooner he realizes it and starts believing in it, the better for all concerned.

Carl Jung, Swiss Psychologist (1875-1961) | Symbols of Transformation, Instinct and the Unconscious, Man and His Symbols

As any change must begin somewhere, it is the single individual who will experience it and carry it through. The change must indeed begin with an individual; it might be any one of us. Nobody can afford to look round and to wait for somebody else to do what he is loath to do himself.
It is only our deeds that reveal who we are.
To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem.

John Maynard Keynes, British Economist (1883-1946) | Treatise on Probability, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Material Poverty provides the incentive to change precisely in situations where there is little margin for experiments.
Material Prosperity removes the incentive just when it might be safe to take a chance.

John Stuart Mill, British Economist (1806-1873) | System of Logic, Utilitarianism, The Principles of Political Economy

One of the effects of civilization (not to say one of the ingredients in it) is, that the spectacle, and even the very idea, of pain, is kept more and more out of the sight of those classes who enjoy in their fullness the benefits of civilization.
Economic and social changes, though among the greatest, are not the only forces which shape the course of our species. Ideas are not always the mere signs and effects of social circumstances: they are themselves a power in history.
No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.
In politics it is almost a triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world.

Lewis Mumford, Philosopher and Urban planner (1895-1990) | Technics and Civilization, The Myth of the Machine

Above all we need, particularly as children, the reassuring presence of a visible community, an intimate group that enfolds us with understanding and love, and that becomes an object of our spontaneous loyalty, as a criterion and point of reference for the rest of the human race.
Faith in the creative process, in the dynamics of emergence, in the values and purposes that transcend past achievements and past forms, is the precondition of all further growth.

E.F. Schumacher, British Economist (1911-1977) | Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered, A Guide for the Perplexed

The greatest deprivation anyone can suffer is to have no chance of looking after himself and making a livelihood.

Philosophers & Historians

Aristotle, Greek Philosopher (B.C. 384-322)

The good man thinks it is more blessed to give than to receive.
Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

Jacob Burkhardt, Swiss Historian (1818-1897) | The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Force and Freedom: Reflections on History

[Crises are] the accelerations of the historical process.
When the hour and the real cause has come, the infection flashes like an electric spark over hundreds of miles.... The message goes through the air, and, in the one thing that counts, all men are suddenly of one mind even if only in a blind conviction: Things must change.

Thomas Carlyle, Scottish Historian (1795-1881) | On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History, The French Revolution

Great actions are historically barren; smallest actions have taken root in the moral soil and grown like banana forests to cover whole quarters of the world.

Confucius, Chinese Philosopher (B.C. 551-479)

When a country is well-governed, poverty and a mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill-governed, riches and honor are things to be ashamed of.
The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.
The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.
To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.

Jose Ortega y Gasset, Spanish Philosopher (1883-1955) | The Revolt of the Masses, The Dehumanization of Art, Man and People

We live at a time when man believes himself fabulously capable of creation, but he does not know what to create. Lord of all, he is not lord of himself. He feels lost amid his own abundance.
With more means at its disposal, more knowledge, more techniques than ever, it turns out that the world today goes the same way as the worst of worlds that have been; it simply drifts.

Franz Kafka, Czech Existentialist (1883-1924) | The Castle, The Metamorphosis, The Trial

Fear for one's daily bread destroys one's character.

Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher (1844-1900) | Thus Spake Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil

The child is innocence and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a sport, a self-propelling wheel, a sacred Yes.

Arnold J. Toynbee, British Historian (1885-1979) | A Study of History

The greater the power that we have to change the World into something nearer to our ideal, the greater becomes our distress at our failing to perform those beneficent and useful acts of creation which we know to be within our power.
Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, with takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.
Compassion is the desire that moves the individual self to widen the scope of its self-concern to embrace the whole of the universal self. Civilizations...come to birth and proceed to grow by successfully responding to successive challenges. They break down and go to pieces if and when a challenge confronts them which they fail to meet.
The best safeguard against fascism is to establish social justice to the maximum possible extent.
A life which does not go into action is a failure.

Political Leaders

John Adams, Signer of Declaration of Independence (1735-1826) First U.S. Vice President, Second U.S. President

The poor man's conscience is clear; yet he is ashamed. He feels himself out of the sight of others, groping in the dark. Mankind takes no notice of him: he rambles and wanders unheeded. In the midst of a crowd, at church, in the market...he is in as much obscurity as he would be in a garret or a cellar. He is not disapproved, censured or reproached: he is only not seen. To be overlooked and, to know it, are intolerable.

Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister 1874-1965) Nobel Prize for Literature winner | The History of the Second World War

I like things to happen; and if they don't happen, I like to make them happen.
When great causes are on the move in the world, stirring all men's souls, drawing them from their firesides, casting aside comfort, wealth and the pursuit of happiness in response to impulses at once awe-striking and irresistible, we learn that we are spirits, not animals.

Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1804-1881)

Man is not the creature of circumstances; circumstances are the creature of man. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th U.S. President (1890-1969) Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in World War II

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

James Grant, Executive Director of UNICEF (1922-1995) Creator of Child Survival and Development Revolution

Children should be the first to benefit from mankind's successes and the last to suffer from its failures.

Alexander Hamilton, First US Secretary of the Treasury (1757-1804) | The Federalist Papers

Happy it is when the interest which the government has in the preservation of its own power, coincides with a proper distribution of the public burdens, and tends to guard the least wealthy part of the community from oppression.

Hubert H. Humphrey, 36th US Vice President (1911-1978)

The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.
Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.
It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
When people are generally aware of a problem, it can be said to have entered the public consciousness. When people get on their hind legs and holler, the problem has not only entered the public consciousness — it has also become a part of the public conscience. At that point, things in our democracy begin to hum.
Each child is an adventure into a better life — an opportunity to change the old pattern and make it new.
As we begin to comprehend that the earth itself is a kind of spaceship hurtling through the infinity of space — it will become increasingly absurd that we have not better organized the life of the human family.
History teaches us that the great revolutions aren't started by people who are utterly down and out, without hope and vision. They take place when people begin to live a little better — and when they see how much yet remains to be achieved.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th US President (1908-1973)

This Administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty.
It cannot be driven from the land by a single attack on a single front. Were this so we would have conquered poverty long ago. Nor can it be conquered by government alone.
Today, for the first time in our history, we have the power to strike away the barriers to full participation in our society. Having the power, we have the duty.
There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few we can solve by ourselves.
The promise of America is a simple promise: Every person shall share in the blessings of this land. And they shall share on the basis of their merits as a person. They shall not be judged by their color, or by their beliefs, or by their religion, or by where they were born, or the neighborhood in which they live.
Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.
Each child is an adventure into a better life — an opportunity to change the old pattern and make it new.
If ever there was a people who sought more than mere abundance, it is our people. If ever there was a nation that was capable of solving its problems, it is this nation. If ever there were a time to know the pride and the excitement and the hope of being an American, it is this time.

John F. Kennedy, 35th US President (1917-1963) Pulitzer Prize winner | Profiles in Courage

With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
Never before has man had such capacity to control his own environment, to end thirst and hunger, to conquer poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and massive human misery. We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world — or to make it the last.
The nation will listen only if it is a moment of great urgency.
Our problems are man-made; therefore, they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
There is inherited wealth in this country and also inherited poverty.
Nothing is more stirring than the recognition of great public purpose. Every great age is marked by innovation and daring — by the ability to meet unprecedented problems with intelligent solutions.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.
There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
The war against hunger is truly mankind's war of liberation.
Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer.

Robert F. Kennedy, US Attorney General (1925-1968)

Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope and, crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.
All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don't. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task.
I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.
Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the great enterprises and ideals of American society.

Pliny the Younger, Roman Orator and Statesman (A.D. 62-113?) | Letters

The first essential is to be content with your own lot; the second, to support and assist those you know to be most in need, embracing them all within the circle of your friendship.

Eleanor Roosevelt, U.S. First Lady and International Human Rights activist (1884-1962)

We cannot exist as a little island of well-being in a world where two-thirds of the people go to bed hungry every night.
I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on.
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd U.S. President (1882-1945)

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. [1937]
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
The third is freedom from want —which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world. ["Four Freedoms": Annual Message to Congress, 1941]
Government has a final responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. If private cooperative effort fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering hardship through no fault of their own have a right to call upon the government for aid. And a government worth of the name must make a fitting response.

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919) Nobel Peace Prize Winner

For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.
The spirit of brotherhood recognizes of necessity both the need of self-help and also the need of helping others in the only way which ever ultimately does great good, that is, of helping them to help themselves.
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
We cannot do great deeds unless we are willing to do the small things that make up the sum of greatness.
A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
The only man who makes no mistake is the man who does nothing.
There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.
The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
A square deal for every man; that is the only safe motto for the United States.
This country will not be a permanent good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in.
We have got but one life here. It pays, no matter what comes after it, to try and do things, to accomplish things in this life and not merely to have a soft and pleasant time.

Harry S. Truman, 33rd US President (1945-1953)

It's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit.
We must remember that the test of our religious principles lies not just in what we say, not only in our prayers, not even in living blameless personal lives — but in what we do for others.
America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
The American people have decided that poverty is just as wasteful and just as unnecessary as preventable disease. We have pledged our common resources to help one another in the hazards and struggles of individual life. We believe that no unfair prejudice or artificial distinction should bar any citizen of the United States of America from an education, or from good health, or from a job that he is capable of performing.
We work for a better life for all, so that all men may put to good use the great gifts with which they have been endowed by their Creator. We seek to establish those material conditions of life in which, without exception, men may live in dignity, perform useful work, serve their communities, and worship God as they see fit.
You know that being an American is more than a matter of where you parents are from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.
Our strength depends upon the health, the morale, the freedom of our people. We can take on the burden of leadership in the fight for world peace because, for nearly 20 years, the Government and the people have been working together for the general welfare. We have given more and more of our citizens a fair chance at decent, useful, productive lives. That is the reason we are as strong as we are today.
The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by poverty and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life has died. We must keep that hope alive.