Quotes about poor
page 11

John McCain photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Frank Chodorov photo

“[E]very soak-the-rich tax must become in time a soak-the-poor tax.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

Source: Fugitive Essays: Selected Writings of Frank Chodorov (1980), p. 272

Harry Johnston photo
Edmund White photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“I was not more than thirteen years old, when in my loneliness and destitution I longed for some one to whom I could go, as to a father and protector. The preaching of a white Methodist minister, named Hanson, was the means of causing me to feel that in God I had such a friend. He thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God: that they were by nature rebels against His government; and that they must repent of their sins, and be reconciled to God through Christ. I cannot say that I had a very distinct notion of what was required of me, but one thing I did know well: I was wretched and had no means of making myself otherwise. I consulted a good old colored man named Charles Lawson, and in tones of holy affection he told me to pray, and to 'cast all my care upon God'. This I sought to do; and though for weeks I was a poor, broken-hearted mourner, traveling through doubts and fears, I finally found my burden lightened, and my heart relieved. I loved all mankind, slaveholders not excepted, though I abhorred slavery more than ever. I saw the world in a new light, and my great concern was to have everybody converted. My desire to learn increased, and especially, did I want a thorough acquaintance with the contents of the Bible”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Source: 1880s, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), pp. 110–111.

Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia photo
James Hudson Taylor photo
D. V. Gundappa photo
Pete Doherty photo
Jakaya Kikwete photo
Andrew Johnson photo

“The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people.”

Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) American politician, 17th president of the United States (in office from 1865 to 1869)

As quoted in Andrew Johnson, Plebeian and Patriot (1928) by Robert Watson Winston
Quote

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Negroes are not the only poor in the nation. There are nearly twice as many white poor as Negro, and therefore the struggle against poverty is not involved solely with color or racial discrimination but with elementary economic justice….”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Local 815, Teamsters and the Allied Trades Council (1967)

Robert T. Kiyosaki photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
David Norris photo
Eudora Welty photo
Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery photo

“… that new spirit which is passing from municipal into Imperial politics, which aims more at the improvement of the lot of the worker and the toiler than at those great constitutional effects in which past Parliaments have taken as their pride… It is all very well to make great speeches and to win great divisions. It is well to speak with authority in the councils of the world and to see your navies riding on every sea, and to see your flag on every shore. That is well, but it is not all. I am certain that there is a party in this country not named as yet that is disconnected with any existing political organization, a party which is inclined to say, "A plague on both your Houses, a plague on all your parties, a plague on all your politics, a plague on your ending discussions which yield so little fruit." (Cheers.) "Have done with this unending talk and come down and do something for the people." It is this spirit which animates, as I believe, the great masses of our artisans, the great masses of our working clergy, the great masses of those who work for and with the poor, and who for the want of a better word I am compelled to call by the bastard term of philanthropists.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Speech to a meeting at St James's Hall on behalf of the Progressive majority in the London County Council (21 March 1894), reported in The Times (22 March 1894), p. 7.

Eliza Acton photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
W.E.B. Du Bois photo

“To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.”

Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. I: Of Our Spiritual Strivings

Linn Boyd photo

“GENTLEMEN OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I may be allowed this occasion to say that, in undertaking to discharge the duties of the Chair, I relied for success rather upon your forbearance and kindly aid than upon any poor abilities of my own. That reliance, I am happy to say, has not failed me. On the contrary, the untiring efforts I feel I have made to perform the task in a becoming manner, have been met and sustained with a degree of liberality seldom equaled in any deliberative body. A striking illustration of this is seen in the fact, that notwithstanding the multiplied questions of parliamentary law and usage which have arisen, and in despite of errors into which I may have fallen, each and all the decisions of the Chair, with a single exception, (and that upon a question of minor importance,) have been generously sustained by this body. And as a further mark of respect and kindness, you have been pleased to adopt a resolution approving of my general conduct as the Presiding Officer of this body. In all this, I feel that I have been peculiarly fortunate; and for it all I beg you will accept my most sincere thanks.Allow me to congratulate you, gentlemen, upon the harmony and personal kindness which have so generally prevailed throughout this Hall. It must remain a source of unmixed pleasure to us all, that our conflicts of opinion here, however fierce they may occasionally have been, were not allowed materially to disturb our social relations; and that now, having finished our work, we part in peace. This House stands adjourned sine die.”

Linn Boyd (1800–1859) American politician

Journal Of the House of Representatives the United States: Second Session of the Thirty-Second Congress (1853-03-03)

Georg Brandes photo
Charles Fillmore photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Michael Moorcock photo

“Your imagination is notoriously poor. Not everyone holds identical ambitions to your own!”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 2, Chapter 4 (p. 560)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

Vernor Vinge photo

“"Poor humans; they will all die."
"Poor us; we will not."”

Prologue (p. 2).
A Fire Upon the Deep (1992)

Thomas Dekker photo

“Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
O sweet content!
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplex'd?
O punishment!”

Thomas Dekker (1572–1632) English dramatist and pamphleteer

Poem Sweet Content http://www.bartleby.com/101/204.html

David Crystal photo
Judas Iscariot photo

“Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?”

Judas Iscariot one of the twelve original apostles of Jesus Christ, known for betrayal of Jesus

John 12:5 KJV

Frida Kahlo photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
Bernie Sanders photo
David Lloyd George photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Phil Brooks photo

“Punk: Wow, everybody, it's John Cena. He comes out here every Monday night, he's excitable, he throws his hat at somebody, everybody loves it. I am so impressed at how you do that. You get all these people to believe you're that friendly, smiling, everyday man, when I know the truth. And the truth, John Cena, is you're thoughtless, you're heartless, and above all else, you are dishonest. I'm sure there's millions of people worldwide, including yourself, that would love to believe this is over a spilled diet soda, but John, this goes way beyond my spilled diet soda. Yeah. John, you were fired from the WWE. You were gone. You gave a very tear-inducing speech in the middle of the ring about how you finally get to see your mom and hang out with your little brother, and you said you were gonna go away. You were gonna be a man of your way, but what happened? You came back later that night, and then you came back the next week, and then you came back the next week, showing all of these people who aren't intelligent to see through your facade what I have known all along—that your word is absolutely worthless. And then there's TLC, you have the man beaten. Wade Barrett, a very tough individual, and you have him beat in a chairs match, but that's not good enough for you. You don't take the high ground, you can't walk off into the sunset with your victory; you drag the man off to the side of the stage and you drop fifteen steel chairs on him, and I wanna know exactly why you think that's acceptable behavior. I wanna know why you think it's okay to show up the next night on Raw and humiliate the poor guy…
Cena: That is balderdash! Fifteen steel chairs? That's insane. It was 23 steel chairs. And in case you forgot, Wade Barrett and the Nexus gave me about five thousand beat-downs, made me their personal slave, and ended my career.
Punk: You wanna talk about ended careers, you hypocrite? This is exactly what I'm talking about. You ended the career of my good friend Dave Batista. John! John, look at me when I'm talking to you. This is a reoccurring pattern with you. Once again, you have the man beaten—last man standing, he verbally submits, how humiliating, the match is won. But, no, you AA him off a car through the very steel ramp that I'm sitting on, which facilitated the end of his career. Now we'll talk about Vickie Guerrero. I'm surprised the lovely Vickie Guerrero doesn't up and quit based on all the abuse you heap on her. It's not just the physical things to the Wade Barretts and the Dave Batistas, but it's the name-calling, it's the mental abuse to somebody as gorgeous and beautiful as Vickie Guerrero.
Cena: "It's the this… it's the that." Okay, CM Punk is gonna play Mr. Fingerpointer. Well…1.—Dave Batista broke my neck; 2.—He showed up on Raw the next night and quit on his own terms. And C—I didn't just single out Vickie Guerrero. In case you haven't been watching for the past… eight years, I talk about everybody. Uh… Michael Cole. Michael Cole has an anonymous fetish with Justin Bieber and has the word "The Miz" man-scaped right below his belly button. Me! Look at me. I look like the crazy sex child of the Incredible Hulk and Grimace. And then there's you.
Punk: Yeah, and then there's me, who happens to not be laughing. I don't know if you noticed that. You're not funny.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

December 27, 2010
WWE Raw

Samuel Beckett photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo

“This idea of oh poor little black person, oh poor little poor person, oh poor little woman, oh poor little indigenous person, everybody's a poor little something!”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Interview to Vice. Meet Brazil's Donald Trump: He's Deliberately Outrageous and He Wants to Be President https://news.vice.com/article/meet-brazils-donald-trump-hes-deliberately-outrageous-and-he-wants-to-be-president. Vice (27 April 2016).

Will Carleton photo

“Over the hill to the poor-house I'm trudgin' my weary way.”

Will Carleton (1845–1912) poet.

Over the Hill to the Poor-house (1872).

Adam Smith photo
Aurangzeb photo

“…in Your Majesty's reign the ministers have no power, the nobles enjoy no trust, the soldiers wretchedly poor, the writers are without employment, the traders are without means, and the peasantry are down-trodden… On the Hindu tribes two calamities have descended, (first) the exaction of the jaziya in the town and (second) the oppression of the enemy in the country. When such sufferings have come down upon the heads of the people from all sides, why should they not fail to prey or thank their ruler?”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Muhammad Akbar to Aurangzeb; see Studies in Mughal India: Being Historical Essays by Jadunath Sarkar, p. 102, Essays on Medieval Indian History by Satish Chandra, p. 324; Mughal Empire in India, 1526-1761: Volume 2 by Shripad Rama Sharma, p. 637; The Mughal-Maratha Relations: Twenty Five Fateful Years, 1682-1707 by G. T. Kulkarni, p. 22
Quotes from late medieval histories

Nicolas Chamfort photo
Fredric Jameson photo
Dana Gioia photo
Jeremy Corbyn photo
Zbigniew Brzeziński photo
Samuel Johnson photo
Robert Charles Winthrop photo
Alexander Pope photo

“Let such, such only tread this sacred floor,
Who dare to love their country and be poor.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Inscription on the entrance to his grotto in Twickenham, published in "Verses on a Grotto by the River Thames at Twickenham, composed of Marbles, Spars and Minerals", line 14, (written 1740, published 1741); also quoted as "Who dared to love their country, and be poor."

John Perkins photo
Gene Simmons photo

“"You can't buy love with money." Only a poor person says that.”

Gene Simmons (1949) Israeli-born American rock bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor

What I've Learned (July 2002)

Warren Zevon photo

“Poor, poor pitiful me.
Poor, poor pitiful me.
These young girls won't let me be.
Lord have mercy on me.
Woe is me.”

Warren Zevon (1947–2003) American singer-songwriter

"Poor Poor Pitiful Me"
Warren Zevon (1976)

James K. Galbraith photo

“A state that does not plan does not, by default turn this function over to the market. Even if the market is perfectly efficient, it still suffers from two ineradicable defects. The first relates to the distribution of income and power: the market conveys signals only in relation to the purchasing power of the individuals transmitting them. The poor do not matter to the market. The second relates to representation: people not yet born do not turn up at the stores. They send no market signals at all”

James K. Galbraith (1952) economist

Source: The Predatory State, 2008, p. 116 ; Quoted in: Trevor Manuel. " Address by the Minister in The Presidency: National Planning Commission, Trevor Manuel, at the Wits Graduate School of Public Development Management; Donald Gordon Auditorium, 26 October 2009 http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=1565" at thepresidency.gov.za, 2014.

LeBron James photo

“It’s hard for me to congratulate somebody after you just lose to them. … I’m a winner. It’s not being a poor sport or anything like that. If somebody beats you up, you’re not going to congratulate them. That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m a competitor. That’s what I do. It doesn’t make sense for me to go over and shake somebody’s hand.”

LeBron James (1984) American basketball player

A Handshake Is Not Too Much to Ask, Even From a King, William C. Rhoden, The New York Times, June 1, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/sports/basketball/02rhoden.html,
James answering why he refuses to shake hand with Dwight Howard.

Robert T. Kiyosaki photo

““The poor and the middle class work for money.” “The rich have money work for them.””

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Shah Jahan photo
Sathya Sai Baba photo
Kevin Warwick photo

“When comparing human memory and computer memory it is clear that the human version has two distinct disadvantages. Firstly, as indeed I have experienced myself, due to aging, human memory can exhibit very poor short term recall.”

Kevin Warwick (1954) British robotics and cybernetics researcher

in Hendricks, V: “500CC Computer Citations”, King’s College Publications, London,2005.

John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Mao Zedong photo

“A dangerous tendency has shown itself of late among many of our personnel -- an unwillingness to share weal and woe with the masses, a concern for personal fame and gain. This is very bad. One way of overcoming it is to streamline our organizations in the course of our campaign to increase production and practice economy, and to transfer cadres to lower levels so that a considerable number will return to productive work. We must see to it that all our cadres and all our people constantly bear in mind that ours is a large socialist country but an economically backward and poor one, and that this is a very big contradiction. To make China prosperous and strong needs several decades of hard struggle, which means, among other things, pursuing the policy of building up our country through diligence and thrift, that is, practicing strict economy and fighting waste.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 在我们的许多工作人员中间,现在滋长着一种不愿意和群众同甘苦,喜欢计较个人名利的危险倾向,这是很不好的。我们在增产节约运动中要求精简机关,下放干部,使相当大的一批干部回到生产中去,就是克服这种危险倾向的一个方法。要使全体干部和全体人民经常想到我国是一个社会主义的大国,但又是一个经济落后的穷国,这是一个很大的矛盾。要使我国富强起来,需要几十年艰苦奋斗的时间,其中包括执行厉行节约、反对浪费这样一个勤俭建国的方针。

Cesar Chavez photo

“History will judge societies and governments — and their institutions — not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

As quoted in Cesar Chavez : A Triumph of Spirit (1997) by Richard Griswold del Castillo and Richard A. Garcia, p. 116

Ibrahim Lipumba photo

“We're very poor because the sports ministry has not done enough. If elected, I will sit down with the federation and come up with plans that will turn our country into a football superpower.”

Ibrahim Lipumba (1952) Tanzanian politician

In one of his election campaign, September 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/africa/4241916.stm.

Bill Mollison photo
Aung San Suu Kyi photo
W. S. Gilbert photo
Indro Montanelli photo
Michael Elmore-Meegan photo
Edgar Lee Masters photo
Owen Lovejoy photo
Elie Wiesel photo
Frances Burney photo
John Updike photo
Philip Roth photo
Christian Dior photo

“If my poor maman had still been alive, I would never have tried”

Christian Dior (1905–1957) French fashion designer

After his applauded success at the "House of Dior" on Avenue Montaigne, in Paris", p. 41
Source: Marie France Pochna [ Christian Dior: The Man who Made the World Look New http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ffkK4dy00SoC&pg=PA170-IA16, Arcade Publishing, 1996

Robert Burton photo
Bernie Sanders photo

“When you're white you don't know what it's like to be living in a ghetto, you don't know what it's like to be poor.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

"Sanders: If You're White You Don't Know What It's Like To Be Poor" http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/06/sanders-if-youre-white-you-dont-know-what-its-like-to-be-poor-video/ by Alex Pfeiffer, The Daily Caller (6 March 2016)
2010s, 2016

Richard Nixon photo
Aristophanés photo

“Chremylus: And what good thing can [Poverty] give us, unless it be burns in the bath, and swarms of brats and old women who cry with hunger, and clouds uncountable of lice, gnats and flies, which hover about the wretch's head, trouble him, awake him and say, “You will be hungry, but get up!” […]
Poverty: It's not my life that you describe; you are attacking the existence beggars lead. […] The beggar, whom you have depicted to us, never possesses anything. The poor man lives thriftily and attentive to his work; he has not got too much, but he does not lack what he really needs. […] But what you don't know is this, that men with me are worth more, both in mind and body, than with [Wealth]. With him they are gouty, big-bellied, heavy of limb and scandalously stout; with me they are thin, wasp-waisted, and terrible to the foe. […] As for behavior, I will prove to you that modesty dwells with me and insolence with [Wealth]. […] Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy. […]
Chremylus: Then tell me this, why does all mankind flee from you?
Poverty: Because I make them better. Children do the very same; they flee from the wise counsels of their fathers. So difficult is it to see one's true interest.”

tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristoph.+Pl.+535
Plutus, line 535-539 & 548 & 552-554 & 558-561 & 563-564 & 567-570 & 575-578
Plutus (388 BC)

Thomas Dekker photo
Robert T. Kiyosaki photo
Archie Carr photo
Rudyard Kipling photo
Alija Izetbegović photo
Torquato Tasso photo

“Great Carthage low in ashes cold doth lie,
Her ruins poor the herbs in height scant pass,
So cities fall, so perish kingdoms high,
Their pride and pomp lies hid in sand and grass:
Then why should mortal man repine to die,
Whose life, is air; breath, wind; and body, glass?”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Giace l'alta Cartago; appena i segni
Dell'alte sue ruine il lido serba.
Muojono le città, muojono i regni;
Copre i fasti e le pompe arena ed erba;
E l'uomo d'esser mortal par che si sdegni:
O nostra mente cupida e superba!
Canto XV, stanza 20 (tr. Fairfax)
Max Wickert's translation:
: Exalted Carthage lies full low. The signs
of her great ruin fade upon the strand.
So dies each city, so each realm declines,
its pomp and glory lost in scrub and sand,
and mortal man to see it sighs and pines.
(Ah, greed and pride! when will you understand?)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Kurien Kunnumpuram photo
Aga Khan III photo
Louis Tronson photo