
“This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.”
1963, Third State of the Union Address
1961, Inaugural Address
Variant: If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
Context: To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required — not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
“This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.”
1963, Third State of the Union Address
Attributed by Wang Li, “历史将宣告我无罪” (History Will Pronounce Me Innocent), manuscript, Beijing, 1993, p. 7. This source is a privately printed collection of letters and documents concerning Wang Li's expulsion from the CCP. Cited in Mao's Last Revolution (2006) by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, ISBN 0674023323
Attributed
Saadi as translated in The Gulistān : Or, Rose-garden, of Shek̲h̲ Muslihu'd-dīn Sādī of Shīrāz as translated by Edward Backhouse Eastwick (1880), p. 203.
Misattributed
“Those who cannot see Christ in the poor are atheists indeed.”
“One cannot live in society and be free from society.”
Collected Works,Vol. 10, pp. 44–49.
Collected Works
“There are few servants to be found who cannot be corrupted with money.”
Pochi servidori si trovano che per danari non si corrompano.
Act II — (Vergilio).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 394.
L’Amor Costante (1536)
Section 115
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Source: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/03/kidnap-of-schoolgirls-stop-paying-ransom-to-criminals-solanke-tells-fg/ Folake Solanke in 2021 speaking out against the ills in society.
“There are few people who are more often wrong than those who cannot suffer being wrong.”
Il n'y a point de gens qui aient plus souvent tort que ceux qui ne peuvent souffrir d'en avoir.
Maxim 386.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“For the poor children who are hungry. For the rich children who are sad.”