Famine Quotes

“Famines are governance crises, not food crises.”

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”

“Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature.”

“The great evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.”

“So great was our famine, that a savage we slew and buried, the poorer sort took him up again and ate him, and so did diverse one another boiled and stewed with roots and herbs.”

“Then having fed upon our horses and other beasts as long as they lasted, we were glad to make shift with vermin as dogs, cats, rats and mice.”

“The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated.”

“Our men were destroyed with cruel diseases, as swellings, fluxes, burning fevers, and by wars, and some departed suddenly, but for the most part they died of mere famine.”

“Being altogether beyond the power of man, the cure has been applied by the direct stroke of an all-wise Providence.”

“We also ate sawdust from boards. Rats were sold for one-half a ducado apiece, and even then we could not get them.”

“This was that time, which still to this day we called the starving time; it were too vile to say, and scarce to be believed, what we endured.”

“No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.”

“It is my opinion that too much has been done for the people.”

“And some have licked up the blood which has fallen from their weak fellows.”