Jacqueline Novogratz Quotes

Your job is not to be perfect, your job is only to be human.

May each of you live lives of immersion. They won't necessarily be easy lives. But in the end, it is all that will sustain us.

Sometimes the most important things that we do are things we cannot measure.

We can send people to the Moon; we can see if there's life on Mars - why can't we get $5 [mosquito] nets to 500 million people?

The time for change is now.

The only way we really create change is to enter any situation with the humility to listen and to recognize the world as it is, and then the audacity to dream what it could be.

My dream is to find individuals who take financial resources and convert them into changing the world in the most positive ways.

Dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth.

Poverty is not only about income levels, but for lack of freedom that comes from physical insecurity

Acumen Fund's patient capital investment in Western Seed is intended to enhance the food security and economic independence of Kenya's smallholder farmers.

Why do some people stop growing at age 30, just going from work to the couch and television, when others stay vibrant, curious, almost childlike into their nineties?

Each of us can work to change a small portion of events. And it's in the total of all those acts that the history of this generation will be written.

Entrepreneurs are the seekers of solutions, and that they will go into these places where both market and traditional aid has failed or traditional charity has failed.

Our lives are so short. And our time on this planet is so precious. All we have is each other.

Monsters will always exist. There's one inside each of us. But an angel lives there, too. There is no more important agenda than figuring out how to slay one and nurture the other.

Philanthropy is no longer about writing a check for $10,000 to the opera.

I have also been touched by the dark side of power and leadership.

For too much of history, we've viewed the world's precious resources - both environmental and human - as things to extract, to make the most of in order to maximize their potential.

I have seen that traditional approaches to charity and aid don't solve problems of poverty. In fact, too often they create dependence.

When systems are broken, it's an opportunity for invention and innovation.

The poor also are willing to make, and do make, smart decisions, if you give them that opportunity.

Dignity is more important than wealth.

After all this atrocity, this is how human beings really pray.

I wrote 'The Blue Sweater' to inspire more people to become engaged in working to solve the problems of global poverty.

I believe the government should ensure all children are provided with a good education.

People have to understand that unless social enterprise is experimental, it will not succeed in making a difference.

Freedom is what beauty feels like when it can most express itself.

Freedom ultimately is dignity. And dignity, not income, is the opposite of poverty.

When I first went to Africa, I thought that I was personally going to save the continent, if not the world.

Very small investments can release the infinite potential that lies in all of us.

Honour what is most beautiful about the past and build it into the promise of the future.

The best change that comes to the world is when all parties are seeing each other as equal, and all parties have the opportunity to be transformed. That really goes back to the idea of dignity.

There are probably no more market-oriented individuals on the planet, than low income people.

The time for us to begin innovating and looking for new solutions is now.

I was going to save the world, and I thought I would start with the African continent.

What would the world look like if we asked ourselves the following more often; are our actions helping others find a way to feel more freer, more dignified and more beautiful?

People need to believe that they can participate fully in the decisions that affect their lives and have a stake in the societies in which they live

We don't see profit as a blind instrument.

Africans didn't want saving, thank you very much, least of all not by me.

If there's one value that is immutable, it's integrity or respect, for others and for yourself.

We often don't realize what our action & our inaction do to people we think we will never see & never know.

I still feel that the kind of leader I want to be is one that spends time understanding our work in a way that allows me to translate it for policymakers and people who have real access to resources.

I feel like I'm a relentless, pragmatic, determined optimist.

One of the first things that surprised me in a positive, wonderfully positive way, is that this works - patient capital works.

It's about all of us, and the kind of world that we, together, want to live in and share.

Our actions - and inaction - touch people every day, people we may never know and never meet.

Just start Don't wait for perfection. Just start and let the work teach you.

Being poor doesn't mean being ordinary.

A sustainable world means working together to create prosperity for all.

Nothing important happens in life without a cost.