“You can't build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery.”

From the writings of William Cowper Brann (1855 – 1898), known as Brann the Iconoclast. http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=zc6W3a68NsoC&pg=PA60&dq=%22patriot+on+an+empty%22+inauthor:Brann&as_brr=0&sig=an5LOns0MG1gg4C2x7VNE1HdeuI
Misattributed

From Abe Martin's "Short Furrows" http://books.google.com/books?id=uUUoAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Nobuddy+ever+listened+t+reason+on+a+empty+stomach%22&pg=RA3-PA16#v=onepage, The American Magazine, February 1913.

2012, Yangon University Speech (November 2012)
Context: It's not enough to trade a prison of powerlessness for the pain of an empty stomach. But history shows that governments of the people and by the people and for the people more powerful in delivering prosperity.

Source: Witches Abroad

Variant: I would not give a fig for anybody's contempt for death. If its roots are not sunk deep in an acceptance of responsibility, this contempt for death is the sign either of an impoverished soul or of youthful extravagance.
Source: Terre des Hommes (1939), Ch. II : The Men
Context: To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.
There is a tendency to class such men with toreadors and gamblers. People extol their contempt for death. But I would not give a fig for anybody's contempt for death. If its roots are not sunk deep in an acceptance of responsibility, this contempt for death is the sign either of an impoverished soul or of youthful extravagance.

Source: Witches Abroad (1991)

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl