110+ Amartya Sen Quotes On Poverty, Economics And Justice

Amartya Sen is an Indian economist and philosopher. He is a Nobel Prize-winning economist and was the first Indian to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998. He is known for his work on welfare economics, social choice theory, economic and social justice, and gender inequality. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Amartya Sen on poverty, economics, justice.

Top 10 Amartya Sen Quotes

1. Economic growth without investment in human development is unsustainable - and unethical.
2. Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough food to eat.
3. Poverty is the deprivation of opportunity.
4. Progress is more plausibly judged by the reduction of deprivation than by the further enrichment of the opulent
5. No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.
6. Human ordeals thrive on ignorance. To understand a problem with clarity is already half way towards solving it.
7. Empowering women is key to building a future we want
8. Imparting education not only enlightens the receiver, but also broadens the giver - the teachers, the parents, the friends.
9. A society can be Pareto optimal and still perfectly disgusting.
10. Economics, as it has emerged, can be made more productive by paying greater and more explicit attention to the ethical considerations that shape human behaviour and judgment.

Amartya Sen Image Quotes

Empowering women is key to building a future we want — Amartya Sen

A society can be Pareto optimal and still perfectly disgusting. — Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen Short Quotes

• No substantial famine has ever occurred in a democratic country - no matter how poor.
• A defeated argument that refuses to be obliterated can remain very alive.
• Gender inequality is not one problem, it's a collection of problems.
• Anything that increases the voice of young women tends therefore to reduce the fertility rate.
• I have not had any serious non-academic job.
• I was born in a University campus and seem to have lived all my life in one campus or another.
• From the mid-1970s, I also started work on the causation and prevention of famines.
• The student community of Presidency College was also politically most active.
• Being able to read, write, do your sums really transforms a human being.
• There are Muslims of all kinds. The idea of closing them into a single identity is wrong.

Amartya Sen Quotes About Poverty

Sometimes the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty — Amartya Sen

Development requires major source of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or overactivity of repressive states. — Amartya Sen

You have to be interested in inequality. The issue of inequality and that of poverty are not separable. — Amartya Sen

I attempted to see famines as broad "economic" problems (concentrating on how people can buy food, or otherwise get entitled to it), rather than in terms of the grossly undifferentiated picture of aggregate food supply for the economy as a whole. — Amartya Sen

Poverty is not really as much of an obstacle to educational expansion as it's sometimes made out to be. — Amartya Sen

Poverty is not just a lack of money; it is not having the capability to realize one's full potential as a human being — Amartya Sen

Poverty is a big barrier if you are at the bottom layer of society, don't know where the next meal is coming from. It is not a big barrier of taking the rich with the poor in a big society to provide schooling for all. — Amartya Sen

We need to ask the moral questions: Do I have a right to be rich? And do I have a right to be content living in a world with so much poverty and inequality? These questions motivate us to view the issue of inequality as central to human living. — Amartya Sen

We live in a world community, and economic contact has partly contributed to that. It’s also the case that economic opportunity opened up by economic contact has helped to a great extent to reduce poverty in many parts of the world. — Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen Quotes About Economics

[Globalization] has enriched the world scientifically and culturally and benefited many people economically as well. — Amartya Sen

While I am interested both in economics and in philosophy, the union of my interests in the two fields far exceeds their intersection. — Amartya Sen

Globalization is a complex issue, partly because economic globalization is only one part of it. Globalization is greater global closeness, and that is cultural, social, political, as well as economic. — Amartya Sen

The lack of economic freedom could be a very major reason for loss of liberty, liberty of life. — Amartya Sen

I'’m generally in favor of economic globalization. Having said that, it doesn’t always work and does not immediately work in the interest of all. There are sufferers. — Amartya Sen

Thailand's economic development was driven by educational expansion. That has been a very dramatic factor, and South Asia had been pretty miserable in not learning from that experience. — Amartya Sen

We live in a world where there is a need for pluralistic institutions and for recognizing different types of freedom, economic, social, cultural, and political, which are interrelated. — Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen Quotes About Democracy

The governments and the hard-headed military establishment and the general conservative part of America have never taken much interest in democracy, anyway. — Amartya Sen

[N]o democracy with a free press has ever experienced a major famine. — Amartya Sen

Democracy is a universal value — Amartya Sen

I don’t think that India is much celebrated for its democracy. Democracy has been a very neglected commodity at home and abroad. — Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen Quotes About Globalization

Globalization can be very unjust and unfair and unequal, but these are matters under our control. It’s not that we don’t need the market economy. We need it. But the market economy should not have priority or dominance over other institutions. — Amartya Sen

In absolutely every way, our lives are transformed by education and basic education in particular. So I would have thought that in any kind of system, to say that the priorities don't include education is a mistake, whether it's [at the] domestic level or at the global level. — Amartya Sen

The themes that the anti-globalization protesters bring to the discussion are of extraordinary importance. However, the theses that they often bring to it, sometimes in the form of slogans, are often oversimple. — Amartya Sen

The anti-globalization movement is one of the biggest globalized events of the contemporary world, people coming from everywhere, —Australia, Indonesia, Britain, India, Poland, Germany, South Africa—to demonstrate in Seattle or Quebec. What could be more global than that? — Amartya Sen

I think the whole progress over the last two or three millennia has been entirely dependent on ideas and techniques and commodities and people moving from one part of the world to another. It seems difficult to take an anti-globalization view if one takes globalization properly in its full sense. — Amartya Sen

Even though I’m pro-globalization, I have to say thank God for the anti-globalization movement. They’re putting important issues on the agenda. — Amartya Sen

[The] USA has been immensely successful in making the determination to deal with terrorism [as] a factor in the global world and, similarly, if it took a similar interest in education, it could make a difference. — Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen Quotes About Development

Human development, as an approach, is concerned with what I take to be the basic development idea: namely, advancing the richness of human life, rather than the richness of the economy in which human beings live, which is only a part of it. — Amartya Sen

Development cannot really be so centered only on those in power. — Amartya Sen

Freedoms are not only the primary ends of development, they are also among its principal means. — Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen Quotes About Education

we must go on fighting for basic education for all, but also emphasize the importance of the content of education. We have to make sure that sectarian schooling does not convert education into a prison, rather than being a passport to the wide world. — Amartya Sen

Education makes human beings more articulate. It transforms people. You can think differently about the world. It makes it possible for you to get jobs. It makes a dramatic difference. It generates a social equity that we need. — Amartya Sen

Your voice is much more articulate and people listen to you if you've been to school. In family decisions, not surprisingly, the biggest impact in reducing fertility is girls' education. — Amartya Sen

There is considerable evidence that women's education and literacy tend to reduce the mortality rates of children — Amartya Sen

The elimination of ignorance, of illiteracy... and of needless inequalities in opportunities (is) to be seen as objectives that are valued for their own sake. They expand our freedom to lead the lives we have reason to value, and these elementary capabilities are of importance on their own — Amartya Sen

I'm very skeptical of the amount of money that goes into military expenditure, not just in the poor countries [but] also in the rich. I think it's one of the most massive wastes in the world, but education is [at the] other end. It's the bearer of the greatest fruits that mankind has ever known. — Amartya Sen

China had managed to reduce their fertility to a large extent because of basic expansion of women's education, not because of the one-child family. — Amartya Sen

Across the world, in Africa, Asia, Latin America, everywhere, there is a widespread recognition on the part of the parents, too, that the children's life will go much better by being educated. And that applies to girls as well as boys. — Amartya Sen

I think education has a bigger impact on the lives of people than absolutely anything else. — Amartya Sen

Education could be a great vehicle for gender equity. It allows people to see what your rights are by reading. Quite often women, for example, may have rights that they are not in the position to actually make use of. — Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen Quotes About Social

I left Delhi, in 1971, shortly after Collective Choice and Social Welfare was published in 1970. — Amartya Sen

Human life depends not only on income but also on social opportunities, [for example] what the state does for educating. — Amartya Sen

There are few subjects that match the social significance of women's education in the contemporary world. — Amartya Sen

If a theory of justice is to guide reasoned choice of policies, strategies or institutions, then the identification of fully just social arrangements is neither necessary nor sufficient. — Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen Famous Quotes And Sayings

Empowering women is key to building a future we want — Amartya Sen

A society can be Pareto optimal and still perfectly disgusting. — Amartya Sen

Sometimes the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty, which robs people of the freedom to satisfy hunger; or to achieve sufficient nutrition, or to obtain remedies for treatable illnesses or the opportunity to be adequatley clothed or sheltered, or to enjoy clean water or sanitary facilities. — Amartya Sen

Education makes us the human beings we are. It has major impacts on economic development, on social equity, gender equity. In all kinds of ways, our lives are transformed by education and security. Even if it had not one iota of effect [on] security, it would still remain in my judgment the biggest priority in the world. — Amartya Sen

The notion of human right builds on our shared humanity. These rights are not derived from the citizenship of any country, or the membership of any nation, but are presumed to be claims or entitlements of every human being. They differ, therefore, from constitutionally created rights guaranteed for specific people. — Amartya Sen

Violence is fomented by the imposition of singular and belligerent identities on gullible people, championed by proficient artisans of terror. — Amartya Sen

The best hope for peace in the world lies in the simple but far-reaching recognition that we all have many different associations and affiliations, and we need not see ourselves as being rigidly divided by a single categorization of hardened groups, which confront each other. — Amartya Sen

But once we recognize that many ideas that are taken to be quintessentially Western have also flourished in other civilizations, we also see that these ideas are not as culture-specific as is sometimes claimed. We need not begin with pessimism, at least on this ground, about the prospects of reasoned humanism in the world. — Amartya Sen

There’s a clear and strong connection between fertility reduction and women’s literacy and empowerment, including women’s gainful employment. If you look at the more than 300 districts of India, the strongest influences in explaining fertility variations are women’s literacy and gainful economic employment. — Amartya Sen

We might have reason to be driven! We live for a short stretch of time in a world we share with others. Virtually everything we do is dependent on others, from the arts and culture to farmers who grow the food we eat. — Amartya Sen

It is also very engaging - and a delight - to go back to Bangladesh as often as I can, which is not only my old home, but also where some of my closest friends and collaborators live and work. — Amartya Sen

When the Nobel award came my way, it also gave me an opportunity to do something immediate and practical about my old obsessions, including literacy, basic health care and gender equity, aimed specifically at India and Bangladesh. — Amartya Sen

Famines occur under a colonial administration, like the British Raj in India or for that matter in Ireland, or under military dictators in one country after another, like Somalia and Ethiopia, or in one-party states like the Soviet Union and China. — Amartya Sen

People's identities as Indians, as Asians, or as members of the human race, seemed to give way - quite suddenly - to sectarian identification with Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh communities. — Amartya Sen

The Arab world is also the world that produced some of the greatest improvements in mathematics and in science. Even today, when a Princeton mathematician does an algorithm, he may not remember that "algorithm" derived from the name al-Khwarizmi, who is a ninth-century Arab mathematician. — Amartya Sen

The exchange between different cultures can not possibly be seen as a threat, when it is friendly. But I believe that the dissatisfaction with the overall architecture often depends on the quality of leadership. — Amartya Sen

Unceasing change turns the wheel of life, and so reality is shown in all it's many forms. Dwell peacefully as change itself liberates all suffering sentient beings and brings them great joy. — Amartya Sen

The opportunities, income, schools facilities, the basic income support that the government provides or any of these things .. public transport arrangements we have.. all these are part of the way our lives and freedoms are effected. — Amartya Sen

It’s very easy to capture pictures of jubilant people in the street after the nuclear bomb. But there were no pictures of morose people sitting in their kitchens and living rooms. — Amartya Sen

There's no reason why one need not look at the content of education just as one is expanding the availability of school, because it doesn't cost more money to get them [a] better education. It requires better textbooks, it requires a vision, it requires a determination, but it's not very expensive to do that anyway. — Amartya Sen

It was incredible to me that members of one community could kill members of another not for anything personal that they did but simply based on their identity. — Amartya Sen

Nearly everywhere Buddhism went, there had been a higher level of literacy, even in miserable Burma, not to mention Thailand and Sri Lanka. — Amartya Sen

There's absolutely no reason why at the level of basic schooling that there should be any inequity whatsoever. And [that's] the first direction to go, [but] that need not prevent you from doing all the other equalities that you want. — Amartya Sen

Opponents of globalisation may see it as a new folly, but it is neither particularly new, nor, in general, a folly. — Amartya Sen

If the knowledge of torture of others makes you sick, it is a case of sympathy... It can be argued that behaviour based on sympathy is in an important sense egoistic, for one is oneself pleased at others' pleasure and pained at others' pain, and the pursuit of one's own utility may thus be helped by sympathetic action. — Amartya Sen

If the government is vulnerable to public opinion, then famines are a dreadfully bad thing to have. You can’t win many elections after a famine, and you don’t like being criticized by newspapers, opposition parties in parliament, and so on. Democracy gives the government an immediate political incentive to act. — Amartya Sen

I think East Asian countries, I think they're very fortunate to have Buddhism survive as a strong influence because right from the time when Buddha himself, 2,500 years ago, made the point about the importance of education, and the word "Buddha" also means enlighten[ed] or educated. So all the Buddhist countries, not only Japan and Korea and China and Hong Kong and Thailand but also even Burma and Sri Lanka, had a higher level of education. — Amartya Sen

Even in areas like the most depressed region of India in terms of female education, namely Rajasthan, which has [one of] the lowest female literacy [rates] in India. Even there, 80 to 90 percent of the parents would like their girls to go to school. And indeed, about 80 percent would like them to be made compulsory. — Amartya Sen

Resenting the obtuseness of others is not good ground for shooting oneself in the foot. — Amartya Sen

It’s scandalous when one thinks about the people who live in a world in which they need not be hungry, in which they need not die without medical care, in which they need not be illiterate, they need not feel hopeless and miserable so much of the time, and yet they are. — Amartya Sen

Belonging to humanity is a great thing for us, and I think the schools can do it. So I think we can look after the quality of education on the school even as we expand the availability of schooling. — Amartya Sen

I remain instinctively hostile to communitarian philosophy and communitarian politics. — Amartya Sen

Capability is just a concept of what is it we're looking at. Now how far we can go along that and what new capabilities become possible is something we have to judge. — Amartya Sen

One has to bring the multidimensional impact that schooling makes in the lives of people. There's nothing like it, and I think the importance of it has to be shaken into people's understanding and determination. — Amartya Sen

The market economy succeeds not because some people's interests are suppressed and other people are kept out of the market, but because people gain individual advantage from it. — Amartya Sen

It seems to me to be kind of inescapable that one has to be interested in the issue of gender and gender equality. I don’t really expect any credit for going in that direction. It’s the only natural direction to go in. Why is it that some people don’t see that as so patently obvious as it should be? — Amartya Sen

To conclude this discussion, assessment of justice demands engagement with the 'eyes of mankind',first, because we may variously identify with the others elsewhere and not just with our local community;second, because our choices and actions may affect the lives of others far as well as near;and third,because what they see from their respective perspective of history and geography may help us to overcome our own parochialism. — Amartya Sen

It is important to reclaim for humanity the ground that has been taken from it by various arbitrarily narrow formulations of the demands of rationality — Amartya Sen

Opportunity could be defined in so many ways. There's one way of defining it, equality of opportunity, which is in fact the equality of capability, but the libertarians got there first and they have - like the Americans getting onto the moon, naming every crater after something like an astronaut - they have got there and named "opportunity" in a way that we cannot get ownership of now. — Amartya Sen

The success of a society is to be evaluated primarily by the freedoms that members of the society enjoy. — Amartya Sen

[To organize a school] looks much more difficult in theory than it does in practice. — Amartya Sen

I was told Indian women don't think like that about equality. But I would like to argue that if they don't think like that they should be given a real opportunity to think like that. — Amartya Sen

If jobs are important, education is important. — Amartya Sen

Sometimes one makes a distinction between urgency and importance. And while disasters are urgent, the basically most important thing is education. And that's what gives it ultimately urgency too, because unless you do it now, this important thing gets again and again postponed. — Amartya Sen

I think the UN's role - especially since it's not an extremely rich fund, and that's to put it mildly - is mainly to act as a leading thinker of the world in terms of how to think about the future. — Amartya Sen

Women's education has a much greater impact [on], for example, fertility. Men's education, if our studies are correct, ha[s] almost no impact on fertility. Women's do. So, by the way, as a man, it's not to the glory of men specifically that it's women's education that reduces child mortality. — Amartya Sen

The identity of just one thing, the "clash of civilization" view that you're a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Christian, I think that's such a limited way of seeing humanity, and schools have the opportunity to bring out the fact that we have hundreds of identities. We have our national identity. We have our cultural identity, linguistic identity, religious identity. Yes, cultural identity, professional identity, all kinds of ways. — Amartya Sen

An Arab activist can take pride in the Arab heritage of mathematics and science or he can take pride in his religion, and there's pride to be taken in both. But one of them could be exploited much more easily and has been in the context of world conflict. And the other is very difficult to do on the grounds that science and literature and mathematics have been among the uniting factors in the history of the world. — Amartya Sen

You can’t prevent undernourishment so easily, but famines you can stop with half an effort. Then the question was why don’t the governments stop them? — Amartya Sen

I don't think poverty provides that much of an obstacle to education as one thinks. I think the bigger obstacle to education is the fact that it's a very hard thing to do for a first-generation schoolgoer. Because not to have parents at home who can help you, motivate you, is a problem even when the parents are in the abstract very keen on children being educated. — Amartya Sen

Japan became an imperialist country in many ways, but that was much later, after it had already made big progress. I don’t think Japan’s wealth was based on exploiting China. Japan’s wealth was based on its expansion in international trade. — Amartya Sen

Each human being is a citizen of the world. We have many identities, of which one of the identities is our human identity. And that's something that the schools can provide, but that requires again a vision rather than being centers of hatred. It could be an enormous opportunity to give that mission. — Amartya Sen

One has to be realistic. One’s concern for equity and justice in the world must not carry one into the alien territory of unreasoned belief. That’s very important. — Amartya Sen

I think in those countries, including my own in India, where I think primary education has been badly neglected by successive governments, I blame the opposition as much. Why have they allowed the government to get away with it? — Amartya Sen

I really do believe that education, despite this massive potential in transforming human lives, has not received the kind of attention that people should have given to it. — Amartya Sen

The fact that schools can actually be a major factor in cementing the world is a factor that's worth considering, the fact that we all have a shared human identity in addition to many other identities. — Amartya Sen

Hardly any famine affects more than 5 percent, almost never more than 10 percent, of the population. The largest proportion of a population affected was the Irish famine of the 1840s, which came close to 10 percent over a number of years. — Amartya Sen

Life Lessons by Amartya Sen

1. Amartya Sen's work has highlighted the importance of focusing on human welfare rather than economic growth alone in order to ensure a society's well-being.
2. He has also demonstrated the need for governments to recognize the importance of public services and the role of civil society in promoting economic and social development.
3. Sen's work has also highlighted the need for governments to take into account the needs of all citizens, regardless of their economic status, when making policy decisions.