110+ Muhammad Yunus Quotes On Poverty, Social And Innovation

Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist who is best known for his pioneering work in microfinance and the development of the Grameen Bank. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his efforts to create economic and social development from below. Yunus is also the author of several books, including Banker to the Poor and Creating a World Without Poverty. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Muhammad Yunus on poverty, social, innovation.

Top 10 Muhammad Yunus Quotes

1. People should wake up in the morning and say 'I am not a job seeker, I am a job-creator.
2. All people are entrepreneurs, but many don't have the opportunity to find that out.
3. Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations, hostility and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society.
4. The oneness of human beings is the basic ethical thread that holds us together.
5. A charity dollar has only one life; a Social Business dollar can be invested over and over again.
6. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor.
7. I had no idea that I would ever get involved with something like lending money to poor people, given the circumstances in which I was working in Bangladesh.
8. Human creativity is unlimited. It is the capacity of humans to make things happen which didn't happen before. Creativity provides the key to solving our social and economic problems.
9. There are cultural issues everywhere - in Bangladesh, Latin America, Africa, wherever you go. But somehow when we talk about cultural differences, we magnify those differences.
10. Poverty is unnecessary.

Muhammad Yunus Short Quotes

• Human beings have enormous resilience.
• When you say vision you have a track that this is what I would like to say.
• Changes are products of intensive efforts.
• The moment you say microfinance everybody wants to help you.
• Today, the concept of business is to make money. Making money is the name of the business.
• If you want to do something you have to imagine it. If you don’t imagine it, it will never happen
• The crisis is the price for the capitalist system
• Young people should think in a different way - they should be job givers not job seeker.
• What good does the theory [of economics] do if it is not working for people?
• A culture that holds people back should and can be changed.

Muhammad Yunus Quotes About Poverty

I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the economic and social systems that we have designed for ourselves; the institutions and concepts that make up that system; the policies that we pursue. — Muhammad Yunus

Once poverty is gone, we'll need to build museums to display its horrors to future generations. They'll wonder why poverty continued so long in human society - how a few people could live in luxury while billions dwelt in misery, deprivation and despair. — Muhammad Yunus

We can remove poverty from the surface of the earth only if we can redesign our institutions - like the banking institutions, and other institutions; if we redesign our policies, if we look back on our concepts, so that we have a different idea of poor people. — Muhammad Yunus

When tiny, tiny things start happening a million times, it becomes a large thing. It lays down the foundation of a strong economic base. With women participating in building this economic base, it becomes the foundation for better social and economic future. — Muhammad Yunus

I should never seek a job in my life, my mission in life is to create jobs. I am not a job seeker, I am a job giver. — Muhammad Yunus

I think, social business is the most logical thing to do. If we had done that, we could reduce all the problems we have. — Muhammad Yunus

Policies are also to blame: the only thing that the governments and people can come up with to give to the poor people is charity. Poor people get hand outs from the state. But this is not a solution to poverty. — Muhammad Yunus

My vision for the future? ... a world completely free from poverty. — Muhammad Yunus

Poverty does not belong in civilized human society. Its proper place is in a museum. That's where it will be. — Muhammad Yunus

I did something that challenged the banking world. Conventional banks look for the rich; we look for the absolutely poor. All people are entrepreneurs, but many don't have the opportunity to find that out. — Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus Quotes About Social

I’m encouraging young people to become social business entrepreneurs and contribute to the world, rather than just making money. Making money is no fun. Contributing to and changing the world is a lot more fun. — Muhammad Yunus

What we are trying to do is to create a social business in Bangladesh, a joint venture to create restaurants for common people. Good, healthy food at affordable prices so that people don't have to opt for food that is unhealthy and unhygienic. — Muhammad Yunus

Making money is no fun. Contributing to and changing the world is a lot more fun. — Muhammad Yunus

By simply capitalizing on core strengths and knowledge, companies and entrepreneurs can engage in an emerging business model that will enable them to create - and demonstrate - real, sustainable social impact in society. — Muhammad Yunus

Engaging in social business is beneficial to a company because it leverages on business competencies to address social issues, involves one-time investment with sustainable results, and produces other positive effects such as employee motivation and improved organizational culture. — Muhammad Yunus

I am proposing to create another kind of business, based on "selflessness" that is in all of us. I am calling it social business. — Muhammad Yunus

This is not charity. This is business: business with a social objective, which is to help people get out of poverty. — Muhammad Yunus

I believe that "government", as we know it today, should pull out of most things except for law enforcement and justice, national defense and foreign policy, and let the private sector, a "Grameenized private sector", a social-consciousness-driven private sector, take over their other functions. — Muhammad Yunus

The challenge I set before anyone who condemns private-sector business is this: If you are a socially conscious person, why don't you run your business in a way that will help achieve social objectives? — Muhammad Yunus

What we need is to think strategically about development, analyzing a country's potential role in its region and the world in search of opportunities for growth. Platforms like the Global Social Business Summit can facilitate the process on bringing about change. — Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus Quotes About People

People.. were poor not because they were stupid or lazy. They worked all day long, doing complex physical tasks. They were poor because the financial institution in the country did not help them widen their economic base. — Muhammad Yunus

We developed microfinance to fight loan sharks - I was telling people don't go to loan sharks - not trying to take advantage and make money for myself. I would be a junior loan shark if I did ... It is not a panacea. — Muhammad Yunus

If we want to help poor people out, one way to do that is to help them explore and use their own capability. Human being is full of capacity, full of capability, it's a wonderful creation, but many people never get a chance to explore that, never know that she or he has that. — Muhammad Yunus

I was teaching in one of the universities while the country was suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I felt very helpless. As an economist, I had no tool in my tool box to fix that kind of situation. — Muhammad Yunus

My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see. — Muhammad Yunus

Here we were talking about economic development, about investing billions of dollars in various programs, and I could see it wasn't billions of dollars people needed right away. — Muhammad Yunus

Today, if you look at financial systems around the globe, more than half the population of the world - out of six billion people, more than three billion - do not qualify to take out a loan from a bank. This is a shame. — Muhammad Yunus

But we have created a society that does not allow opportunities for those people to take care of themselves because we have denied them those opportunities. — Muhammad Yunus

Some people think that poor people are lazy. Actually, it takes a lot of work to survive when you are dirt-poor. — Muhammad Yunus

Making money is a happiness. And that's a great incentive. Making other people happy is a super-happiness. — Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus Quotes About Bank

Grameen Bank was formed as an institution owned by its borrower members, who are poor women. Through its unique decision-making process, Grameen Bank has given millions of women the means to emerge from the shadows in a male-dominated society and to make something of themselves. — Muhammad Yunus

My experience working in the Grameen Bank has given me faith; an unshakable faith in the creativity of human beings. It leads me to believe that humans are not born to suffer the misery of hunger and poverty. They suffer now as they did in the past because we turn our heads away from this issue. — Muhammad Yunus

Soon we saw that money going to women brought much more benefit to the family than money going to the men. So we changed our policy and gave a high priority to women. As a result, now 96% of our four million borrowers in Grameen Bank are women. — Muhammad Yunus

I have come to believe, deeply and firmly, that we can create a poverty free world if we want to. I came to this conclusion not as a product of a pious dream, but as a concrete result of experience gained in the work of the Grameen Bank. — Muhammad Yunus

I founded Grameen Bank to provide loans to those considered traditionally unbankable. Grameen Bank works with the poorest and often illiterate, providing uncollateralized micro-loans for tiny business enterprises by which they can lift themselves and their families out of poverty. — Muhammad Yunus

In the future the question will not be, "Are people credit-worthy", but rather, "Are banks people-worthy?" — Muhammad Yunus

I went to the bank and proposed that they lend money to the poor people. The bankers almost fell over. — Muhammad Yunus

If the basic structure of Grameen is changed, the worry is that the poor women who are the rightful owners of the bank will be disenfranchised. — Muhammad Yunus

Microcredit has shown how you can reach out to people that conventional banking cannot. It has demonstrated that it's a doable proposition. — Muhammad Yunus

Long live Grameen Bank. Let the power of poor women prevail. — Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus Quotes About Poor

The fact that the poor are alive is clear proof of their ability. — Muhammad Yunus

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! — Muhammad Yunus

So i say, change the base! If you change the base, anybody will be as tall as anybody else! My belief is poverty is not caused by poor ppl. Poverty is caused by the system. Poverty is caused by the policies that we pursue. — Muhammad Yunus

...poor people are just as human as anyone else. They have just as much potential as anyone. — Muhammad Yunus

They explained to me that the bank cannot lend money to poor people because these people are not creditworthy. — Muhammad Yunus

An individual poor person is an isolated island by himself and herself. IT can end that isolation overnight. — Muhammad Yunus

If we are looking for one single action which will enable the poor to overcome their poverty, I would focus on credit — Muhammad Yunus

We have to get out of this mindset that the rich will do the business and the poor will have the charity. — Muhammad Yunus

One day our grandchildren will go to museums to see what poverty was like. — Muhammad Yunus

The able bodied poor don't want or need charity.... All they need is financial capital. — Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus Quotes About Needed

Civilization has given us enormous successes: going to the moon, technology. But then this is the civilisation that took us to debt, environmental crisis, every single crisis. We need a civilization where we say goodbye to these things. — Muhammad Yunus

People need such a small amount of money to deal with their own daily life. Because wherever I went to school they taught me about millions of dollars. I dealt with billions of dollars in national plans and investment plans and so on. Not this tiny money, $27 for 42 people. — Muhammad Yunus

In this world of plenty, a tiny baby, who does not yet understand the mystery of the world, is allowed to cry and cry and finally fall asleep without the milk she needs to survive. — Muhammad Yunus

I made a list of people who needed just a little bit of money. And when the list was complete, there were 42 names. The total amount of money they needed was $27. I was shocked. — Muhammad Yunus

Credit markets were originally created to serve human needs; to provide businesses and individuals with capital to start or expand businesses or fulfill other financial needs. — Muhammad Yunus

To overcome poverty and the flaws of the economic crisis in our society, we need to envision our social life. We have to free our mind, imagine what has never happened before and write social fiction. We need to imagine things to make them happen. If you don't imagine, it will never happen. — Muhammad Yunus

Like navigation markings in unknown waters, definitions of poverty need to be distinctive and unambiguous. A definition that is not precise is as bad as no definition at all. — Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus Famous Quotes And Sayings

Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong in their seeds. Simply, society never gave them the base to grow on. All it needs to get the poor people out of poverty for us to create an enabling environment for them. Once the poor can unleash their energy and creativity, poverty will disappear very quickly. — Muhammad Yunus

I was an economist now turning into a human being - as if these are two different things. I don't know but I did that and then I had no vision. — Muhammad Yunus

I avoid grandiose plans. I start with a small piece that I can do. I go to the root of the problem and then work around it. It's building brick by brick. — Muhammad Yunus

What is entrepreneurship, after all? Bigness is not the issue. Poor people are the ones who take challenges every day. The guy who sells a hot dog on the street is as much an entrepreneur as anyone else. Getting his $50 loan to start could be as difficult as finding $50 million for someone else. All people are entrepreneurs. — Muhammad Yunus

We believe that poverty does not belong in a civilized human society. It belongs in museums [...] A poverty-free world might not be perfect, but it would be the best approximation of the ideal. — Muhammad Yunus

We have done some of these in Bangladesh. Whenever I see a problem, I immediately go and create a company. That's what I did all my life. — Muhammad Yunus

They said, we have education, but what about jobs? So I started telling them, you should be taking a pledge, and the pledge should be: 'I'm not a job seeker; I'm a job giver.' Prepare yourself to be a job giver. — Muhammad Yunus

Unprecedented technological capabilities combined with unlimited human creativity have given us tremendous power to take on intractable problems like poverty, unemployment, disease, and environmental degradation. Our challenge is to translate this extraordinary potential into meaningful change. — Muhammad Yunus

People can change their own lives, provided they have the right kind of institutional support. They're not asking for charity, charity is no solution to poverty. Poverty is the creation of opportunities like everybody else has, not the poor people, so bring them to the poor people, so that they can change their lives. — Muhammad Yunus

A university should not be an island where academics attain higher and higher levels of knowledge without sharing any of this knowledge with its neighbours. — Muhammad Yunus

The essence of capitalism is expressed in two of its basic features: a) profit maximization and b) market competition. In their abstract formulations none of them was supposed to have anything conspiratorial against the poor. But in real life they turn out to be the "killers" of the poor - by making rich the richer and poor the poorer. — Muhammad Yunus

There is the expression of selfishness and there is the expression of selflessness - but economists or theoreticians never touched that part. They said: 'Go and become a philanthropist.' I said, 'No, I can do that in the business world, create a different kind of business - a business based on selflessness.' — Muhammad Yunus

...culture is useless unless it is constantly challenged by counter culture. People create culture; culture creates people. It is a two-way street. When people hide behind a culture, you know that's a dead culture. — Muhammad Yunus

Capitalism is not about the profit motive. Capitalism is about free markets. What you do in the market, in your free will, is the essence of capitalism. — Muhammad Yunus

Even today we don't pay serious attention to the issue of poverty, because the powerful remain relatively untouched by it. Most people distance themselves from the issue by saying that if the poor worked harder, they wouldn't be poor. — Muhammad Yunus

Poverty is not created by poor people. It is produced by our failure to create institutions to support human capabilities. — Muhammad Yunus

I'm finding that knocking at their mindsets is hard work. A simple knock will not make it crawl. I was trying to push it. I was trying to find a bird's eye view where I could find a big solution. So this is what I was trying. — Muhammad Yunus

I will not spend the money for myself. I will rather spend it in special business on a no-profit-no-loss policy. We will also establish an eye hospital where even beggars will be given treatment at the cost of Taka 10-20. — Muhammad Yunus

I wanted to give money to people like this woman so that they would be free from the moneylenders to sell their product at the price which the markets gave them - which was much higher than what the trader was giving them. — Muhammad Yunus

All human beings are born entrepreneurs. Some get a chance to unleash that capacity. Some never got the chance, never knew that he or she has that capacity. — Muhammad Yunus

I had only immediate things today, only today, not tomorrow. I don't know what will happen tomorrow. Today I can see myself like crystal. — Muhammad Yunus

My vision for the future? Two things: to make credit a human right so that each individual human being will have the opportunity to take loans and implement his or her ideas so that self-exploration becomes possible. And second: that it will lead to a world where nobody has to suffer from poverty - a world completely free from poverty. — Muhammad Yunus

UN studies conducted in more than forty developing countries show that the birth rate falls as women gain equality... I believe income-earning opportunities that empower poor women ... will have more impact on curbing population growth that the current system of "encouraging" family planning practices through intimidation tactics.. Family planning should be left to the family. — Muhammad Yunus

If you go out into the real world, you cannot miss seeing that the poor are poor not because they are untrained or illiterate but because they cannot retain the returns of their labor. They have no control over capital, and it is the ability to control capital that gives people the power to rise out of poverty. — Muhammad Yunus

Peace should be understood in a human way - in a broad social, political and economic way. Peace is threatened by unjust economic, social and political order, absence of democracy, environmental degradation and absence of human rights. — Muhammad Yunus

The current financial crisis makes it very clears that the system that we have isn't really working, and this is the right time for us to undo things and build them in a new way. — Muhammad Yunus

Women have plans for themselves, for their children, about their home, the meals. They have a Vision. A man wants to enjoy himself. — Muhammad Yunus

We got rid of colonialism, we got rid of slavery, and we got rid of apartheid everyone thought each one of them was impossible. Let's take the next impossible, do it with joy and get it finished with and create a world free from poverty. Let us create the world of our choice. — Muhammad Yunus

Access to quality education has enabled me to reach far beyond the Bangladeshi village I grew up in. — Muhammad Yunus

The only place where poverty should be is in museums. — Muhammad Yunus

Human beings are much bigger than just making money. — Muhammad Yunus

I was trained to become an economist and I finished my work and I was teaching and did my PhD so I thought I did that. I prepared myself for that kind of road. But then I realized that I had not learned enough to solve the problem of poverty. So I distanced myself from the things that I learned and tried to learn anew about people. — Muhammad Yunus

The Grameen Bank Ordinance with amendments up to 2008 is a beautiful legal structure for the fulfillment of the ideals and objectives of the bank. Any change in this structure will be devastating for the bank. — Muhammad Yunus

In my experience, poor people are the world's greatest entrepreneurs. Every day, they must innovate in order to survive. They remain poor because they do not have the opportunities to turn their creativity into sustainable income. — Muhammad Yunus

Truly affordable but high-quality health care tools and services are the only means by which quality health care can be provided to all. — Muhammad Yunus

I'm sure everything has a bearing on what I'm doing. My family is a lower-middle-class family, there's lots of children, seven brothers, two sisters grew up together, fighting with each other, went to school. My mother went to school up to 4th grade. My father went to school up to 8th grade. So that's about the education level we had in the family. — Muhammad Yunus

Credit is a human right that should be treated as a human right. If credit can be accepted as a human right, then all other human rights will be easier to establish. — Muhammad Yunus

It's very difficult to look at it in a kind of a free manner, what reality is. That was my first struggle, to see it as it is, rather than tainted by my own previous thoughts. — Muhammad Yunus

Instead of concentrating on the war against poverty, global attention is focused on another kind of slaughter - on something that is intangible and yet being tackled by all the possible military means we can muster. And all the lofty declarations by world leaders about combatting poverty that were lauded by the General Assembly turned out to be damp squibs. — Muhammad Yunus

In a bird's eye view you tend to survey everything and decide on a particular point, then you swoop down and pick it up. In a worms eye view you don't have that advantage of looking at everything. — Muhammad Yunus

If we are looking for one single action which will enable the poor to overcome their poverty, I would go for credit. Money is power. I have been arguing that credit should be accepted as a human right. If we can come up with a system which allows everybody access to credit while ensuring excellent repayment - I can give you a guarantee that poverty will not last long. — Muhammad Yunus

I said peace is sometimes narrowly interpreted; it's the absence of conflict between nations or something. But peace is more inherent, more basic to human life, human beings, what we feel about each other, what we feel about life around us and what we see in our future. — Muhammad Yunus

If I could be useful to another human being, even for a day, that would be a great thing. It would be greater than all the big thoughts I could have at the university. — Muhammad Yunus

All human beings are very creative - full of potential, full of energy... So, money kind of allows them to express it... And if you're successful, you can take more money. You can expand your capacity, reach next level of capacity, and so on. — Muhammad Yunus

If you think creating a world without any poverty is impossible, let's do it. Because it is the right thing to do. — Muhammad Yunus

The developing world is full of entrepreneurs and visionaries, who with access to education, equity and credit would play a key role in developing the economic situations in their countries. — Muhammad Yunus

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. — Muhammad Yunus

The profit orientation is only one orientation of a person. The same people who are interested in profit-making are also selfless. I am not saying that capitalist theory is wrong. I am saying that it has not been interpreted and practiced fully. — Muhammad Yunus

Capitalism has been interpreted as an exclusively profit-centric human engagement. Some have been saying to bring people and planet into the picture. This can be a good change, but it is still not fully operationalized. Are you putting people, planet and profit at the same level? — Muhammad Yunus

Business money is limitless. — Muhammad Yunus

It's very difficult when you have learned something a certain way. Not only your mind absorbs it; your eyes also are trained to see in a certain way because eyes are only as good as you've been trained to see. — Muhammad Yunus

To me, the poor are like Bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a six-inch deep flower pot, you get a perfect replica of the tallest tree, but it is only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted; only the soil-base you provided was inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong with their seeds. Only society never gave them a base to grow on. — Muhammad Yunus

..things are never as complicated as they seem. It is only our arrogance that prompts us to find unnecessarily complicated answers to simple problems. — Muhammad Yunus

Life Lessons by Muhammad Yunus

1. Muhammad Yunus demonstrated the power of microfinance to help the world's poorest people become self-sufficient and create economic opportunity.
2. He showed that small loans can make a big difference in the lives of people who otherwise have limited access to capital.
3. His work has inspired the development of microfinance institutions around the world, proving that small investments can have a big impact.