POVERTY

Related Subjects: Adversity, Beggar, Charity, Depression, Employment, Hunger, Misery, Misfortune, Necessity, Wants

1. The worst of ills, and hardest to endure,
   Past hope, past cure,
   Is Penury, who, with her sister-mate
   Disorder, soon brings down the loftiest state,
   And makes it desolate.—ALCAEUS
   

2. Poverty does not mean the possession of little, but the non-possession of much.—ANTIPATER
   

3. Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.—ARISTOTLE, Politics
   

4. The poor always ye have with you.—Bible, John 12:8
   

5. Christ himself was poor. . . . And as he himself, so he informed his apostles and disciples, they were all poor, prophets poor, apostles poor.—ROBERT BURTON,
   Anatomy of Melancholy
   

6. Over the hill to the poorhouse I'm trudgin' my weary way.WILL CARLETON, Over the Hill to the Poor-House
   

7. Of all God's creatures, man
   Alone is poor.—MRS. THOMAS CARLYLE, To a Swallow Building Under Our Eaves
   

8. Abolish poverty, and what would become of the race? Progress, development would cease.—ANDREW CARNEGIE, Empire of Business
   

9. I heartily subscribe to President Garfield's doctrine, that "The richest heritage a young man can be born to is poverty."—ANDREW CARNEGIE, Empire of Business
   

10. Wan iv th' shtrangest things about life is that th' poor, who need th' money th' most, ar-re th' very wans that niver have it.—F. P. DUNNE, Poverty
    

11. Some great and noble sorrow may have the effect of drawing hearts together, but to struggle against destitution, to be crushed by care about
    shillings and sixpences—that must always degrade.—GEORGE GIBBING, New Grub Street
    

12. Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
    The short and simple annals of the poor.—THOMAS GRAY, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
    

13. He is so poor that he could not keep a dog.—LONGUS, Daphnis and Chloe
    

14. Poverty, the mother of manhood.—LUCAN, The Civil War
    

15. If you are a poor man now, Almihanus, a poor man you will always be. Nowadays, riches are bestowed on no one but the rich.—MARTIAL
    

16. Poverty is a soft pedal upon all branches of human activity, not excepting the spiritual.—H. L. MENCKEN, A Book of Prefaces
    

17. Rattle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper, whom nobody
    owns!—THOMAS NOEL, The Pauper's Drive
    

18. The child was diseased at birth, stricken with a hereditary ill that only the most vital men are able to shake off. I mean poverty—the most deadly and prevalent of all diseases.—EUGENE O'NEILL, Fog
    

19. Better be poor and live, than rich and perish.—Proverb
    

20. Better be poor than wicked.—Proverb
    

21. Poverty is no sin.—Proverb
    

22. As poor as Job.—Proverb

23. There is God's poor, and the devil's poor; the first from Providence, the other from vice.—Proverb
    

24. It is more easy to praise poverty than bear it.—Proverb
    

25. He that is known to have no money has neither friends nor credit.—Proverb
    

26. He bears poverty very ill who is ashamed of it.—Proverb
    

27. A poor man has not many marks for fortune to shoot at.—Proverb
    

28. When I hae a saxpence under my thumb,
    Then I get credit in ilka town;
    But when I am poor, they bid me gae by,
    O, poverty parts good company.—SCOTT, The Abbot
    

29. It is not the man who has too little but the man who craves more, that is poor.—SENECA
    

30. A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
    A living-dead man.—SHAKESPEARE, The Comedy of Errors
    

31. Having nothing, nothing can he lose.—SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI
    

32. Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,
    That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
    How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
    Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
    From seasons such as these?—SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
    

33. Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips.—SHAKESPEARE, Othello
    

34. Apothecary:My poverty, but not my will consents.
    
    Romeo: I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.—SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
    

35. How apt the poor are to be proud.—SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night
    

36. From a free society involuntary poverty will be banished.
    
    The end of involuntary poverty means the end of most prostitution and crime, and of all war between civilized peoples.—UPTON SINCLAIR
    

37. "And wherefore do the poor complain?"
    The rich man asked of me—
    "Come walk abroad with me," I said,
    "And I will answer thee."—SOUTHEY, The Complaints of the Poor
    

38. We are sorry for the poor man, very sorry; and we will do almost anything for the poor man's relief. We will not only supply him with food sufficient to keep him on his legs, but we will teach and instruct him and point out to him the beauties of the landscape; we will discourse sweet music to him and give him abundance of good advice.
    
    Yes, we will do almost anything for the poor man but get off his back.—TOLSTOY
    

39. He is now fast rising from affluence to poverty.—MARK TWAIN, Henry Ward Beecher's Farm
    

40. Poverty has advantages and disadvantages, yet notwithstanding poverty we risk it. The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found those dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. They leave that philosophy to those who like it. Let the storm arise, the night descend, which is worse, danger or the fear of danger?—VAN GOGH, Letters
    

41. When you sleep in your cloak there's no lodging to pay.—G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE,
    Boots and Saddles