Not to be able to bear poverty is a shameful thing; but not to know how to chase it away by work is a more shameful thing yet.
—Pericles (c.490–429 BCE) Athenian Statesman, General
Spinoza, greatest abstract philosopher, left his sister a bed and a small silver pen knife, no money, no land, no house, but his thought has taught the world’s greatest thinking men.
—Arthur Brisbane (1864–1936) American Newspaper Editor, Investor
The greatest man in history was the poorest.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
A poor man is all schemes.
—Spanish Proverb
The principle of asceticism never was, nor ever can be, consistently pursued by any living creature. Let but one tenth part of the inhabitants of the earth pursue it consistently, and in a day’s time they will have turned it into a Hell.
—Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British Philosopher, Economist
The greatest evils and the worst of crimes is poverty; our first duty, a duty to which every other consideration should be sacrificed, is not to be poor.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor; will be in fear when you speak to him; will make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, and by degrees come to lose your veracity, and sink into base, downright lying; for the second vice is lying, the first is running in debt. A freeborn man ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to any man living, but poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Poverty is no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English Clergyman, Essayist, Wit
Like two doomed ships that pass in storm we had crossed each other’s way: but we made no sign, we said no word, we had no word to say.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
In going to America one learns that poverty is not a necessary accompaniment to civilization.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy without physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up.
—Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) (1870–1916) British Short Story Writer, Satirist, Historian
You lose your manners when you’re poor.
—Lillian Hellman (1905–84) American Dramatist, Memoirist
Hard as it may appear in individual cases, dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful.
—Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) English Economist, Clergyman
What we have found in this country, and maybe we’re more aware of it now, is one problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice.
—Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American Head of State
Hunger makes a thief of any man.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights Activist
Want of prudence is too frequently the want of virtue; nor is there on earth a more powerful advocate for vice than poverty.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
Affluence creates poverty.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
Who ever mocks the poor insults his maker; and he that is glad at calamities shall not go unpunished.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man’s starving.
—O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) (1862–1910) American Writer of Short Stories
It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.
—Mother Teresa (1910–97) Roman Catholic Missionary, Nun
O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
These unhappy times call for the building of plans that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) American Head of State, Lawyer
He travels safe and not unpleasantly, who is guarded by poverty and guided by love.
—Philip Sidney (1554–86) English Soldier Poet, Courtier
In a terrible crisis there is only one element more helpless than the poor, and that is the rich.
—Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American Civil Liberties Lawyer
The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.
—Mother Teresa (1910–97) Roman Catholic Missionary, Nun
If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
—Charles Darwin (1809–82) English Naturalist
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
A rich child often sits in a poor mother’s lap.
—Danish Proverb
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