Quote

If I am hungry, that is a material problem if someone else is hungry, that is a spiritual problem.

Paul Farmer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Paul Farmer
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: October 26
Anthropologist
Human Rights Activist
Medical Anthropologist
Physician
North Adams
Massachusetts
Materials
Spiritual
Else
Someone
Problem
Hungry
Material

More quotes by Paul Farmer

Image
I've been impressed, over the last 15 years, with how often the somewhat conspiratorial comments of Haitian villagers have been proven to be correct when the historical record is probed carefully.
Paul Farmer
Image
I would say that, intellectually, Catholicism had no more impact on me than did social theory.
Paul Farmer
Image
I think that looking forward it's easy to imagine more constructive help for Haiti.
Paul Farmer
Image
The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.
Paul Farmer
Image
lean water and health care and school and food and tin roofs and cement floor, all of these things should constitute a set of basics that people must have as birthrights.
Paul Farmer
Image
We have to design a health delivery system by actually talking to people and asking, 'What would make this service better for you?' As soon as you start asking, you get a flood of answers.
Paul Farmer
Image
Anywhere you have extreme poverty and no national health insurance, no promise of health care regardless of social standing, that's where you see the sharp limitations of market-based health care.
Paul Farmer
Image
At the same time, it is obvious that clinicians in Haiti are faced with different, and, in fact, greater, challenges when attempting to treat complications of HIV disease.
Paul Farmer
Image
The thing about rights is that in the end you can't prove what should be considered a right.
Paul Farmer
Image
The biggest public health challenge is rebuilding health systems. In other words, if you look at cholera or maternal mortality or tuberculosis in Haiti, they're major problems in Haiti, but the biggest problem is rebuilding systems.
Paul Farmer
Image
It is very expensive to give bad medical care to poor people in a rich country.
Paul Farmer
Image
Again, conventional Catholicism does not much appeal to me.
Paul Farmer
Image
The idea that because you're born in Haiti you could die having a child. The idea that because you're born in you know Malawi your children may go to bed hungry. We want to take some of the chance out of that.
Paul Farmer
Image
It is clear that the pharmaceutical industry is not, by any stretch of the imagination, doing enough to ensure that the poor have access to adequate medical care.
Paul Farmer
Image
The essence of global health equity is the idea that something so precious as health might be viewed as a right.
Paul Farmer
Image
That's when I feel most alive, when I'm helping people.
Paul Farmer
Image
People call me a saint and I think, I have to work harder. Because a saint would be a great thing to be.
Paul Farmer
Image
You can't have public health without working with the public sector. You can't have public education without working with the public sector in education.
Paul Farmer
Image
You can't have public health without a public health system. We just don't want to be part of a mindless competition for resources. We want to build back capacity in the system.
Paul Farmer
Image
God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. You want to see where Christ crucified abides today? Go to where the poor are suffering and fighting back, and that's where He is.
Paul Farmer