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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

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Amartya Sen
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: November 3
Economist
Philosopher
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Shantiniketan
Amartya Kumar Sen
Professor Amartya Kumar Sen
Reason
Lead
Capability
Needless
Value
Inequality
Illiteracy
Seen
Objectives
Capabilities
Education
Educational
Elementary
Values
Opportunities
Elimination
Freedom
Sake
Valued
Opportunity
Importance
Literacy
Lives
Ignorance
Expand
Inequalities

More quotes by Amartya Sen

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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
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I guess some of the most delightful moments of my teenage years were when I was trying not just to educate myself but trying to educate others. And I could see how the lives of children could be transformed in that.
Amartya Sen
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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
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I think education has a bigger impact on the lives of people than absolutely anything else.
Amartya Sen
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I think that so many of our abilities to do things depend on interaction with each other.
Amartya Sen
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There is considerable evidence that women's education and literacy tend to reduce the mortality rates of children
Amartya Sen
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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
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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
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Human life depends not only on income but also on social opportunities, [for example] what the state does for educating.
Amartya Sen
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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
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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
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Democracy is a universal value
Amartya Sen
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You have to be interested in inequality. The issue of inequality and that of poverty are not separable.
Amartya Sen
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Human ordeals thrive on ignorance. To understand a problem with clarity is already half way towards solving it.
Amartya Sen
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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
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Poverty is the deprivation of opportunity.
Amartya Sen
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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
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[N]o democracy with a free press has ever experienced a major famine.
Amartya Sen
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I remain instinctively hostile to communitarian philosophy and communitarian politics.
Amartya Sen
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There are some people who say that they’re concerned only with poverty but not inequality. But I don’t think that is a sustainable thought. A lot of poverty is, in fact, inequality because of the connection between income and capability—having adequate resources to take part in the life of the community.
Amartya Sen