quotations about poverty
His rawbone cheeks, through penury and pine,
Were shrunk into his jaws, as he did never dine.
EDMUND SPENSER
The Faerie Queene
It's true that poverty affects people of all races, genders, and nationalities, but it's also true that poverty--especially deep, persistent, intergenerational poverty--plagues some groups more than others. That's because poverty isn't just a matter of making too little money to pay the bills or living in a bad neighborhood--it's about a series of circumstances and challenges that build upon each other, making it difficult to create stability and build wealth.
GILLIAN B. WHITE
"Poverty, Compounded", The Atlantic, April 16, 2016
If you go out into the real world, you cannot miss seeing that the poor are poor not because they are untrained or illiterate but because they cannot retain the returns of their labor. They have no control over capital, and it is the ability to control capital that gives people the power to rise out of poverty.
MUHAMMAD YUNUS
Baker to the Poor
The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich.
JOHN BERGER
Keeping a Rendezvous
Few things in this world trouble people more than poverty, or the fear of poverty; and indeed it is a sore affliction; but, like all other ills that flesh is heir to, it has its antidote, its reliable remedy. The judicious application of industry, prudence, and temperance is a certain cure.
HOSEA BALLOU
Treasury of Thought
Poverty is a death sentence. They say, "Well, you're poor, that's not good you don't have a fancy TV or go out to eat." That's not the issue. If you are born in Baltimore's poorest neighborhood, your life expectancy is almost 20 years shorter than if you were born in its wealthiest neighborhood.
BERNIE SANDERS
"Why is Bernie Sanders suddenly talking more about poverty?", CBS News, May 3, 2016
An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.
PLUTARCH
attributed, Social problems for the twenty-first century
He is now fast rising from affluence to poverty.
MARK TWAIN
Henry Ward Beecher's Farm
Riches and ease, it is perfectly clear, are not necessary for man's highest culture, else had not the world been so largely indebted in all times to those who have sprung from the humbler ranks. An easy and luxurious existence does not train men to effort or encounter with difficulty; nor does it awaken that consciousness of power which is so necessary for energetic and effective action in life. Indeed, so far from poverty being a misfortune, it may, by vigorous self-help, be converted even into a blessing; rousing a man to that struggle with the world in which, though some may purchase ease by degradation, the right-minded and true-hearted will find strength, confidence, and triumph.
SAMUEL SMILES
Self-Help
Poverty ... is already half-Christian by its very nature; it has everything to gain by a doctrine which makes so little of the present and the visible, and so much of the future and the unseen.
HENRY PARRY LIDDON
Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford
I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.
RAYMOND CHANDLER
The Big Sleep
The poor ye have always with you.
JESUS
Matthew 26:11
You're going to tell me that poverty's nothing to be ashamed of. It's not true, though. If you can't hide it, then it is something to be ashamed of. There's nothing you can do, you're ashamed just the same, the way you're ashamed when you leave a spot on somebody's table. No matter if it's deserved or not, honorable or not, poverty stinks. Yes, stinks, stinks like a ground-floor room off an airshaft, or clothes that need changing. You smell it yourself, as though you were made of sewage. It can't be wiped away. It doesn't help to put on a new hat, any more than rinsing your mouth helps when you're belching your guts out. It's around you and on you and everyone who brushes up against you or looks at you knows it.
STEFAN ZWEIG
The Post Office Girl
If the poor man's earthly lot is hard, it makes more welcome the suggestions of heaven.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Poverty makes men satirical; soberly, sadly, bitterly satirical.
JAMES HAIN FRISWELL
attributed, Day's Collacon
Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.
J. K. ROWLING
speech, June 5, 2008
One solitary philosopher may be great, virtuous, and happy in the depth of poverty, but not a whole people.
ISAAK ISELIN
attributed, Arcturus: A Journal of Books and Opinion, Volume 2
It is not poverty so much as pretense, that harasses a ruined man--the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse.
WASHINGTON IRVING
"The Wife", The Sketch Book
Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit of which he is expected to show himself in public.
CHARLES LAMB
Essays of Elia
People ... were poor not because they were stupid or lazy. They worked all day long, doing complex physical tasks. They were poor because the financial institution in the country did not help them widen their economic base.
MUHAMMAD YUNUS
Baker to the Poor