Poor Man Quotes - Page 8

• However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man.

  Michelangelo

  Men, May, Rich

  John Addington Symonds, Michelangelo Buonarroti (2002). “The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti: Based on Studies in the Archives of the Buonarroti Family at Florence”, p.82, University of Pennsylvania Press

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• Bells, the poor man's only music.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Men, Bells, Poor

  1798 'Frost at Midnight'.

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• Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, 2,460 years ago, until the ripened harvest was gathered by men of our race. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free. In every age its progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for power, and the poor man's craving for food.

  Lord Acton

  Strong, Ignorance, Men

  "The History of Freedom in Antiquity". Lord Acton's opening statement of his speech on February 28, 1877; later quoted in "The History of Freedom and Other Essays" edited by John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence, 1907.

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• The poor man with industry is happier than the rich man in idleness.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Work, Men, Rich

  Henry Ward Beecher (1850). “Industry and idleness: with causes of dishonesty : to which are appended six warnings”, p.16

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• Because its myriad glimmering plumes Like a great army's stir and wave; Because its golden billows blooms, The poor man's barren walks to lave: Because its sun-shaped blossoms show How souls receive the light of God, And unto earth give back that glow I thank him for the Goldenrod.

  Lucy Larcom

  Army, Men, Light

  Lucy Larcom (1881). “Wild Roses of Cape Ann: And Other Poems”

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• Truth is not only a man's ornament but his instrument; it is the great man's glory, and the poor man's stock: a man's truth is his livelihood, his recommendation, his letters of credit.

  Benjamin Whichcote

  Men, Credit, Letters

  Benjamin Whichcote, Anthony Tuckney (1753). “Moral and religious aphorisms [collected by J. Jeffery from the papers of B. Whichcote]. Now re-publ., with additions, by S. Salter. To which are added, Eight letters: which passed between dr. Whichcote, and dr. Tuckney”, p.149

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• Never pretend to have money except when you are in straits. The poor man who pretends to have a bank account betters his credit and takes no risk. But the prosperous individual who counts his money in the street, forthwith will be invited to attend a charity bazaar.

  George Ade

  Money, Men, Risk

  George Ade (1960). “The America of George Ade, 1866-1944: Fables, Short Stories, Essays”, New York, Putnam [1960]

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• It is with honesty in one particular as with wealth,--those that have the thing care less about the credit of it than those who have it not. No poor man can well afford to be thought so, and the less of honesty a finished rogue possesses the less he can afford to be supposed to want it.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Honesty, Men, Credit

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.377

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• I saw no poor men, except a few intemperate ones. I saw some very poor women; but God and man know that the time has not come for women to make their injuries even heard of.

  Harriet Martineau

  Men, Saws, Discrimination

  Harriet Martineau (1837). “Society in America”, p.8

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• You hear that boy laughing?you think he's all fun; But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Children, Fun, Angel

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• Boxing's a poor man's sport. We can't afford to play golf or tennis. It is what it is. It's kept so many kids off the street. It kept me off the street.

  Sugar Ray Leonard

  Sports, Kids, Golf

  Interview with Kam Williams, www.kamwilliams.com. July 16, 2012.

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• The indiscriminate denunciation of the rich is mischievous.... No poor man was ever made richer or happier by it. It is quite as illogical to despise a man because he is rich as because he is poor. Not what a man has, but what he is, settles his class. We can not right matters by taking from one what he has honestly acquired to bestow upon another what he has not earned.

  Benjamin Harrison

  Men, Class, Matter

  Harrison, Benjamin (1901). “Views of an ex-president”, p.336, Best Books on

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• Buying coffee on the street instead of in a Starbucks is the poor man's way to get rich. In other words, you will never get rich by scratching out ten cents from your dollar.

  James Altucher

  Coffee, Men, Dollars

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• once, when I was a young lady and on a night express ... I was awakened by a man coming in from the corridor and taking hold of my leg ... Quite as much to my own astonishment as his, I uttered the most appalling growl that ever came out of a tigress. He fled, poor man, without a word: and I lay there, trembling slightly, not at my escape but at my potentialities.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Confidence, Night, Men

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• Spring cold is like the poverty of a poor man who has had a fortune left him - better days are coming.

  Margaret Oliphant

  Spring, Men, Poverty

  Margaret Oliphant (1873). “Innocent: A Tale of Modern Life : in 2 Volumes”, p.34

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• We have to recognise, that the gin-palace, like many other evils, although as poisonous, is still a natural outgrowth of our social conditions. The tap-room in many cases is the poor man's only parlour. Many a man takes to beer, not from the love of beer, but from a natural craving for the light, warmth, company, and comfort which is thrown in along with the beer, and which he cannot get excepting by buying beer. Reformers will never get rid of the drink shop until they can outbid it in the subsidiary attractions which it offers to its customers.

  William Booth

  Beer, Men, Light

  William Booth (2014). “In Darkest England and the Way Out”, p.48, Cambridge University Press

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• If woman's sole responsibility is of the domestic type, one class will be crushed by it, and the other throw it off as a badge of poverty. The poor man's motto, 'Woman's work is never done,' leads inevitably to its antithesis - ladies' work is never begun.

  Antoinette Brown Blackwell

  Responsibility, Men, Class

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• Music is the poor man's Parnassus.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Music, Men, Poor

  1876 Letters and Social Aims,'Poetry and Imagination'.

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• Pale death knocks with impartial foot at poor men's hovels and king's palaces.

  Horace

  Death, Art, Kings

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• I felt great calmness and perfect peace. I had the feelings of a poor man who has just come under the protection of the Royal Family, and has obtained an annual pension for life-the dreadful fear of poverty and want having left his house for ever; I felt the safety and shelter which the little chickens feel under the wings of the hen. This is what it is to abide under the shadow of the Almighty, and to hide under His wings until all dangers are past.

  Christmas Evans

  Past, Men, Wings

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• Economy, the poor man's mint.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Men, Economics, Economy

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1849). “The Poetical Works”, p.353

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• There is a saying that no man has tasted the full flavour of life until he has known poverty, love and war. The justness of this reflection commends it to the lover of condensed philosophy. The three conditions embrace about all there is in life worth knowing. A surface thinker might deem that wealth should be added to the list. Not so. When a poor man finds a long-hidden quarter-dollar that has slipped through a rip into his vest lining, he sounds the pleasure of life with a deeper plummet than any millionaire can hope to cast.

  O. Henry

  Philosophy, War, Rip

  O. Henry (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of O. Henry (Illustrated)”, p.621, Delphi Classics

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• The poor man who takes property by force is called a thief, but the creditor who can by legislation make a debtor pay a dollar twice as large as he borrowed is lauded as the friend of a sound currency. The man who wants the people to destroy the Government is an anarchist, but the man who wants the Government to destroy the people is a patriot.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Men, People, Sound

  William Jennings Bryan (1896). “The First Battle: A Story of the Campaign of 1896”

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• Alas, poor men, their destiny. When all goes well a shadow will overthrow it. If it be unkind one stroke of a wet sponge wipes all the picture out.

  Aeschylus

  Destiny, Men, Shadow

  Aeschylus (2013). “Aeschylus II: The Oresteia”, p.66, University of Chicago Press

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• The meekest of animals will fight bravely when it is backed against a wall, for it has nothing left to lose. A poor man is more deadly than a rich man because he puts less value on his own life.

  R. A. Salvatore

  Wall, Fighting, Animal

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