“Other sorrows soften the heart, — poverty hardens it. Nothing like poverty for chilling the affections and repressing the spirits. Its annoyances are all of the small and mean order; its regrets all of a selfish kind; its presence is perpetual; and the scant meal, and the grudged fire, are repeated day by day, yet who can become accustomed to them?”
The Monthly Magazine
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Letitia Elizabeth Landon 785
English poet and novelist 1802–1838Related quotes

In an interview to the World Association of Newspapers for World Press Freedom Day (3 May 2004)
Context: It's an amazing thing to think that ours is the first generation in history that really can end extreme poverty, the kind that means a child dies for lack of food in its belly. That should be seen as the most incredible, historic opportunity but instead it's become a millstone around our necks. We let our own pathetic excuses about how it's "difficult" justify our own inaction. Be honest. We have the science, the technology, and the wealth. What we don't have is the will, and that's not a reason that history will accept.

Speech to the Salvation Army William Booth Centenary Celebrations, London (10 April 1929), published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), pp. 106-107.
1929

(1838 1) (Vol 52) A Long While Ago
The Monthly Magazine

“When other sects speak well of Zen, the first thing that they praise is its poverty.”
III, 7
Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 538.

“The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel… its poverty by how little.”
Source: Invincible