Muhammad Yunus quotes

Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur and economist, renowned as the founder of Grameen Bank and pioneer of microcredit. His innovative approach has helped millions of people escape poverty through small loans and financial inclusion. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to create economic and social development from below. Here are 105 of his quotes:

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

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 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

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

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

We will make yogurt with all kinds of nutritious elements. We want to provide nutrition to the poor and children.

Muhammad Yunus

Poor people always pay back their loans. It's us, the creators of institutions and rules, who keep creating trouble for them.

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

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

All human beings have an innate skill - survival skill. The fact that poor are still alive is a proof of their ability to survive. We do not need to teach them how to survive. They know this already.

Muhammad Yunus

To me poor people are like bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a flower-pot, you get a replica of the tallest tree, only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted, only the soil-base that is too inadequate. 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

Poverty has been created by the economic and social system that we have designed for the world. It is the institutions that we have built, and feel so proud of, which created poverty.

Muhammad Yunus

Poverty is unnecessary.

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

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

Muhammad Yunus

Human beings are much bigger than just making money.

Muhammad Yunus

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.

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

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

Muhammad Yunus

If you are born into a poor family, if you are a woman you have seen the worst of poverty. In a cultural way in the families in Bangladesh it's the women who eats last. So if you have a scarcity in the family ... she misses out so everything comes in the raw deal for her. So, given a chance she works very hard to make a change to improve her life. And by training she is the most efficient manager of scarce resources. Because with the little resource she has, she has to stretch it as much as she can to look after the children, look after the family and everything else.. unlike men - men want to enjoy right away. Whatever he got, whatever tiny bit of thing he got he doesn't care for much what's coming up.

Muhammad Yunus

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

Muhammad Yunus

Each individual person is very important. Each person has tremendous potential. She or he alone can influence the lives of others within the communities, nations, within and beyond her or his own time.

Muhammad Yunus