“"Choosers will be beggars if the begging’s not their choosing," said the Dog.”

Part I, chapter 10.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

"The Beggars" in The William Saroyan Reader (1958)

Source: Sons and Lovers

During an interview with The New York Times reporter, Kevin Rafferty in October 1976.
[10 October 1976, http://ziaarchive.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/economic-hope-for-bangladesh.pdf, Economic Hope For Bangladesh, 2010-11-19]

45 Antigonus I
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 31
Context: Beggars do not work, it is said; but then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, bronchitis etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course — but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout-in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering.

7 December 2004
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2004

Source: Shine