“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.”

“...one cannot but wonder how an environment can make people despair and sit idle and then, by changing the conditions, one can transform the same people into matchless performers.”

“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!”

“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. The...”

“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 mo...”

“Changes are products of intensive efforts.”

“[Credit is a system whereby] a person who can't pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay.”

“Once again discovered: Do what you do because you enjoy. If expect others to give credit or honor your work, you are due for disappointment”

“Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society...”

“I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa”

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”

“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”

“History is reticent about women who were common soldiers, who bore arms, belonged to regiments, and took part in battles on the same terms as men, though hardly a war has been waged without women s...”

“Possibly in the lobby she saw someone who reminded her too much of herself (that can happen to inexperienced travelers). Or worse. That no one there reminded her of anyone she ever knew.”

“As facing the sea reveals the skyand facing the sky reveals the seafacing my soul reveals your soul”