Poverty Quotes - Page 4

• Needy knife-grinder! whither are ye going? Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order; Bleak blows the blast-your hat has got a hole in it. So have your breeches.

  George Canning

  Blow, Order, Knives

  George Canning (1842). “Select Speeches of the Right Honourable George Canning: With a Preliminary Biographical Sketch, and an Appendix, of Extracts from His Writings and Speeches”, p.557

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• Empty pockets make empty heads.

  William Carlos Williams

  Pockets, Empty, Empty Pockets

  William Carlos Williams, A. Walton Litz, Christopher MacGowan (1991). “The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962”, p.88, New Directions Publishing

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• Poverty is very good in poems but very bad in the house; very good in maxims and sermons but very bad in practical life.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  House, Very Good, Practical Life

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• Four specters haunt the Poor - Old Age, Accident, Sickness and Unemployment. We are going to exorcise them. We are going to drive hunger from the hearth. We mean to banish the workhouse from the horizon of every workman in the land.

  David Lloyd George

  Heart, Mean, Land

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• I was deeply concerned then, and have become more concerned since, that unless we can deal with the questions of development and the questions of poverty, there's no way that we're going to have a peaceful world for our children.

  James Wolfensohn

  Children, Peaceful, Development

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• Poverty is the openmouthed relentless hell which yawns beneath civilized society. And it is hell enough.

  Henry George

  Society, Hell, Enough

  Louis Freeland Post, Henry George (1899). “The Single Tax: An Explanation, with Colored Charts and Illustrated Notes of the Land, Labor, and Fiscal Reform Advocated by Henry George”

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• Every morning our newspapers could read, 'More than 20,000 people perished yesterday of extreme poverty.' How? The poor die in hospital wards that lack drugs, in villages that lack antimalarial bed nets, in houses that lack safe drinking water. They die namelessly, without public comment. Sadly, sad stories rarely get written.

  Jeffrey Sachs

  Morning, Drinking, Yesterday

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• That amid our highest civilization men faint and die with want is not due to the niggardliness of nature, but to the injustice of man.

  Henry George

  Men, Civilization, Want

  Henry George (1886). “Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry Into the Cause of Industrial Depressions, and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth [and] the Remedy”

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• I think that's how Chicago got started. A bunch of people in New York said, 'Gee, I'm enjoying the crime and the poverty, but it just isn't cold enough. Let's go west.'

  Richard Jeni

  Funny, New York, Thinking

  "A few words from Richard Jeni". www.cnn.com. March 12, 2007.

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• You don't seem to realize that a poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich person who is unhappy. Because the poor person has hope. He thinks money would help.

  Jean Kerr

  Thinking, Atheism, Unhappy

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Poverty calls us to sow hope.... Poverty is the flesh of the poor Jesus, in that child who is hungry, in the one who is sick, in those unjust social structures.

  Pope Francis

  Jesus, Children, Sick

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• A way has to be found to enable everyone to benefit from the fruits of the earth, and not simply to close the gap between the affluent and those who must be satisfied with the crumbs falling from the table, but above all to satisfy the demands of justice, fairness and respect for every human being.

  Pope Francis

  Fall, Justice, Fruit

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• The people starve because those above them eat too much tax-grain. That is the only reason why they starve.

  Laozi

  People, Too Much, Reason Why

  Laozi (1999). “Laozi”

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• An avowal of poverty is no disgrace to any man; to make no effort to escape it is indeed disgraceful.

  Thucydides

  Men, Effort, Escapism

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• To be shelterless and alone in the open country, hearing the wind moan and watching for day through the whole long weary night; to listen to the falling rain, and crouch for warmth beneath the lee of some old barn or rick, or in the hollow of a tree; are dismal things - but not so dismal as the wandering up and down where shelter is, and beds and sleepers are by thousands; a houseless rejected creature.

  Charles Dickens

  Country, War, Rain

  Charles Dickens (1867). “Barnaby Rudge: And, Hard Times”, p.90

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• The forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Men, Pyramids, World War 2

  Radio address, 7 Apr. 1932 See Sumner 3

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• Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Pride, Infamy, Plenty

  Jack Vincent, Benjamin Franklin (2010). “Benjamin Franklin's the Way to Wealth”, p.83, The Way to Wealth

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• The beggarly last doit.

  William Cowper

  Lasts

  William Cowper (1856). “The task, Table talk, and other poems: With critical observations of various authors on his genius and character, and notes, critical and illustrative”, p.265

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• We must act together, as a united people... For the birth of a new world. Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.

  Patricia Young

  Justice For All, People, Water

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• Poverty is bitter, but it has no harder pang than that it makes men ridiculous.

  Juvenal

  Men, Ridiculous, Bitter

  "Satires". Book by Juvenal, III, line 152, 1890.

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• Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail, And say there is no sin but to be rich; And being rich, my virtue then shall be To say there is no vice but beggary

  William Shakespeare

  Vices, Sin, Rich

  'King John' (1591-8) act 2, sc. 1, l. 593

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• A man who has nothing can whistle in a robber's face.

  Juvenal

  Men, Faces, Robbers

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• We didn't starve but nobody ate chicken unless we were sick or the chicken was.

  Bernard Malamud

  Sick, Poor, Chickens

  "A Malamud reader".

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• Poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up.

  Hector Hugh Munro

  Home, Together, Break

  Saki, Hector Hugh Munro (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Saki (Illustrated)”, p.387, Delphi Classics

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• As poverty has been reduced in terms of mere survival, it has become more profound in terms of our way of life.

  Raoul Vaneigem

  Life, Profound, Survival

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