Amartya Sen Quotes

26 Sourced Quotes

To conclude this discussion, assessment of justice demands engagement with the 'eyes of mankind',first, because we may variously identify with the others elsewhere and not just with our local community;second, because our choices and actions may affect the lives of others far as well as near;and third,because what they see from their respective perspective of history and geography may help us to overcome our own parochialism.

Amartya Sen
Indeed, in the terrible history of famines world is hard to find a case where there has been famine in a country having a free press and active opposition within a democratic institutional framework. [...] The negative freedom of the press and opposition parties to criticize, write and organize the protest can be extremely effective in safeguarding freedom positive elementary population more vulnerable.

Amartya Sen
Opponents of globalisation may see it as a new folly, but it is neither particularly new, nor, in general, a folly.

Amartya Sen
Although the socialist economies, including those led by communist parties in various parts of the world, have been beset by economic and political problems (including oppression), the aims and objectives that have previously attracted people towards socialism remain still important as they were fifty years ago. The concepts of social justice are also constantly re-emerged after they were weakened by the difficulties encountered in implementing various projects.

Amartya Sen
Although capitalism is, in principle, strongly individualistic, it has contributed in practice to reinforce the trend to integration, because it has made our lives more and more interdependent. Moreover, the economic well-being unprecedented in modern economies that have produced meant that they could be accepted social obligations that previously no one could 'afford'.

Amartya Sen
The exchange between different cultures can not possibly be seen as a threat, when it is friendly. But I believe that the dissatisfaction with the overall architecture often depends on the quality of leadership.

Amartya Sen
Reductionism solitary human identity has far-reaching consequences. Evoked an illusion to divide individuals into categories extraordinarily rigid can be used to instigate clashes between groups.

Amartya Sen
People's identities as Indians, as Asians, or as members of the human race seemed to give way — quite suddenly — to sectarian identification with Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh communities.

Amartya Sen
Development cannot really be so centered only on those in power.

Amartya Sen
Living in a market economy is not very different from speaking in prose. It is not easy to do without it, but much depends on what we choose to use prose.

Amartya Sen
Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough food to eat.

Amartya Sen
There are Muslims of all kinds. The idea of closing them into a single identity is wrong.

Amartya Sen
Religion is not and can not be all encompassing identity of an individual.

Amartya Sen
If a theory of justice is to guide reasoned choice of policies, strategies or institutions, then the identification of fully just social arrangements is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Amartya Sen
There is considerable evidence that women's education and literacy tend to reduce the mortality rates of children

Amartya Sen
If the knowledge of torture of others makes you sick, it is a case of sympathy... It can be argued that behaviour based on sympathy is in an important sense egoistic, for one is oneself pleased at others' pleasure and pained at others' pain, and the pursuit of one's own utility may thus be helped by sympathetic action.

Amartya Sen
Sometimes the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty

Amartya Sen
It is important to reclaim for humanity the ground that has been taken from it by various arbitrarily narrow formulations of the demands of rationality

Amartya Sen
When the prospects for good relations between different human beings are seen (as happens more often) mainly in terms of "friendship among civilizations" or "dialogue between religious groups 'or' friendly relations between different communities" (ignoring the many other ways in which individuals relate to each other), projects for peace are subject to an approach that "miniature" human beings.

Amartya Sen
Violence is fomented by the imposition of singular and belligerent identities on gullible people, championed by proficient artisans of terror.

Amartya Sen
A defeated argument that refuses to be obliterated can remain very alive.

Amartya Sen
Freedoms are not only the primary ends of development, they are also among its principal means.

Amartya Sen
But once we recognize that many ideas that are taken to be quintessentially Western have also flourished in other civilizations, we also see that these ideas are not as culture-specific as is sometimes claimed. We need not begin with pessimism, at least on this ground, about the prospects of reasoned humanism in the world.

Amartya Sen
No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.

Amartya Sen
[Globalization] has enriched the world scientifically and culturally and benefited many people economically as well.

Amartya Sen