Muhammad Yunus quotes
1940 – · Bangladesh, 20th–21st century · economist, social entrepreneur, banker and statesman
About Muhammad Yunus
Born 28 June 1940 near Chittagong, Yunus studied economics (PhD, Vanderbilt) and taught before returning to Bangladesh in 1972. He began small-loan experiments in 1976 that became the Grameen Project and, after legislation, Grameen Bank in 1983, which he led as founding managing director. He promoted microcredit and the concept of social business.
Works: Banker to the Poor; Creating a World Without Poverty; Building Social Business; A World of Three Zeros
Quotes
“I was teaching at one of the universities while the country was suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I felt completely helpless. As an economist, I had no tools in my toolbox to deal with that kind of situation.”
Source: Wharton School interview, 2005 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- Documented in a 2005 interview with the Wharton School; Yunus recounts teaching during the 1974 famine and lacking tools to address mass hunger.
Yunus captures the moral crisis of an economist whose classroom theories feel useless while people starve. Recorded in a 2005 Wharton interview, this realization pushed him from analysis to building practical institutions to relieve poverty. The line explains the origin of his hands-on work.