The average family earning minimum wage spends 141 percent of their income struggling to meet basic needs - food, shelter, clothing.
In today's world, people experience two types of poverty: the poverty caused by lack of food, clothing and shelter, and the poverty caused by lack of love and compassion. Of these two, the second type needs to be considered first because if we have love and compassion in our hearts, then we will wholeheartedly serve those who suffer from lack of food, clothing and shelter.
... if you're poor and ignorant, with a child, you're a slave. Meaning that you're never going to get out of it. These women are in bondage to a kind of slavery that the 13th Amendment just didn't deal with. The old master provided food, clothing and health care to the slaves because he wanted them to get up and go to work in the morning. And so on welfare: you get food, clothing and shelter--you get survival, but you can't really do anything else. You can't control your life.
Everyone—all of us, every last person on God’s earth—deserves decent shelter. It speaks to the most basic of human needs—our home—the soil from which all of us, every last person, either blossom or wither. We each have need of food, clothing, education, medical care, and companionship; but first, we must have a place to live and grow.
What is the most fascinating kind of self-deception to me, and a kind that isn't necessarily unhealthy, is what Friedrich Nietzsche called "strategic self-deception." The kind of self-deception that you can engage in with your eyes wide open. You do it because you say, "There's things that I couldn't accomplish without this kind of self-deception."
Luxury is anything you don't need, right? I mean, you need food, water, clothing, shelter... but good wine, good food, beautiful interiors, nice clothes; those aren't necessities, they are luxuries - it's all luxury.
If you asked me what makes the world go round, I would say self-deception. Self-deception allows us to create a consistent narrative for ourselves that we actually believe. I’m not saying that the truth doesn’t matter. It does. But self-deception is how we survive.
In America, you are not required to offer food to the hungry or shelter the homeless. There is no ordinance forcing you to visit the lonely, or comfort the infirmed. No where in the Constitution does it say you have to provide clothing to the poor. In fact, one of the nicest things about living here in America, is that you really don't have to do anything for anybody. But when you do, you give meaning and provide soul to the concept of community...and develop a sense of purpose to something greater than one's self.
Egoism... is not eliminated by economic reorganization or by material abundance. When basic needs are satisfied, new 'needs' emerge. In our society, people want no simply clothes, but fashionable clothes; not shelter, but a house to display their wealth and taste.
Growing up, we had to work. If you wanted anything at all that was more than basic food and shelter, you had to make your own money.
What do you actually need? Food, clothing and shelter. Everything else is entertainment.
The deepest need of men is not food and clothing and shelter, important as they are. It is God.
The average family pays more in taxes than it spends on food, clothing, and shelter combined.
What people want is their basic needs. So I'm trying to help people ensure their basic need: that means food security, healthcare, education, and job opportunity and a better life.
Money is only unused power. The real purpose of wealth, after food, clothing and shelter, is philanthropy.
You are rich if you have enough to meet your most basic needs. You are rich if you have access to clean water, food, shelter, love, a roof over your head.You have to count your blessings to see that you are richer than you think.