Muhammad Yunus Quotes

Approximately the size of Florida, Bangladesh has a population of about 120 million.

the poor have a better chance in a bigger open market than in a smaller protected market. Everyone would benefit from the free flow of commodities, finances, and people.

Nothing is quite as beautiful as farmers harvesting their rice.

We are faced with famine in 1974 and people are dying of hunger. When people are dying of hunger, and you are a young economic teacher, teaching an elegant economic theory in the class room, it doesn't make you feel good. Because all your brilliant theories don't seem to, come into use of the people who dying. And it 's death you cannot explain because it's not cause of disease. ..it's just of not having food to eat...
So in the situation like that you have nothing but frustration and agony. So one way, I try to kind of enlightened my frustration and agony by coming to the conclusion that I may not be useful as an economist, but I'm still a basic human being. I can juts go out and stand next to human being. And see if there's anything I can do to another person. Even for a day if it is help, pay for more a day, I feel more a little bit better. So that's why I started going outside the campus..

I thought if you can become an angel for 27 dollars, it would be fun to do more of it

The poor themselves can create a poverty-free world. All we have to do is to free them from the chains that we have put around them!

As a social business, Grameen Danone follows the basic principle that it must be self-sustaining, and the owners must remain committed to never take any dividend beyond the return of the original amount they invested.

I thought, if you can become an angel for 27 dollars. It would be fun to do more of it

When you can hold the world in your palm and see it from a bird’s eye view, you tend to become arrogant – you do not realize that when looking from such a great distance, everything becomes blurred, and that you end up imagining rather than really seeing things.

I believe that the emphasis on curbing population growth diverts attention from the more vital issue of pursuing policies that allow the population to take care of itself.

The process of breaking down fear was always my greatest challenge and it was made easier by the careful work and gentle voices of my female workers.

Mother always put money away for any poor relatives who visited us from distant villages. It was she, by her concern for the poor and the disadvantaged, who helped me discover my interest in economics and social reform.

What happens to the rest of the world? It’s as if the rest of the world will be forgotten... This is a vaccine that is needed by 8 billion people. What happens to poor people? What happens to poor countries who cannot afford to pay the prices that they’ll be charging in the rich countries? With social business, shareholders don’t want to make any profit out of it so no dividend is taken from the company and we can reduce the cost and produce anywhere.

When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding the solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences.

Our financial institutions have created a worldwide system of apartheid without anyone being horrified by it. If you don't have collateral, you are not credit worthy. To the banks, you are not accepted on our side of the world.

Thus, the social business might be described as a “non-loss, non-dividend company,” dedicated entirely to achieving a social goal.