The Best Muhammad Yunus quotes

Business money is limitless. — Muhammad Yunus

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

Business is a very beautiful mechanism to solve problems, but we never use it for that purpose. We only use it to make money. It satisfies our selfish interest but not our collective interest. — Muhammad Yunus

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

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

Poor people are just as human as anyone else. They have just as much potential as anyone. — 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

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

Poverty is an artificial, external imposition on a human being; it is not innate in a human being. And since it is external, it can be removed. It is just a question of doing it. — Muhammad Yunus

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. — Muhammad Yunus

Human beings have enormous resilience. — Muhammad Yunus

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

Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations, hostility and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society. — 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

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

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

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

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

Today, the concept of business is to make money. Making money is the name of the business. — Muhammad Yunus

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

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

Human beings are much more complex than just being instruments for making money. — Muhammad Yunus

I have always said that human beings are multidimensional beings. Their happiness comes from many sources, not, as our current economic framework assumes, just from making money. — 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

Yes, they will. They do. Unlike the rich, the poor can’t risk not repaying. This is the only chance they have.’ The — Muhammad Yunus

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

Are you sure the poor will repay?’ the governor asked. ‘Yes, — Muhammad Yunus

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

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

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

Poor people always pay back their loans. […] It is us, the designers of institutions and rules, who keep creating trouble for them. — 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

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

We lent to poor women, the more I realized that credit given to a woman brings about change faster than when given to a man. In — Muhammad Yunus

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

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

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

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

In the United States I saw how the market liberates the individual and allows people to be free to make personal choices. — 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

A charity dollar has only one life; a Social Business dollar can be invested over and over again. — 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

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

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

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

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

Money commands everything because that’s our interpretation of capitalism … what kind of world is that? It’s a very uncomfortable interpretation of a human being. We have been turned into robots. — 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

We have designed a capitalist system wrong. We assume human beings are one–dimensional, all they do is make money, so we’ve created a money–centric world. — Muhammad Yunus

We prepare our students for jobs and careers, but we don’t teach them to think as individuals about what kind of world they would create. — Muhammad Yunus