Quotes about poor
page 12

Charles James Napier photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
José Maria Eça de Queiroz photo

“Human effort may manage at its best to transform a starving proletariat into a well-fed bourgeoisie; but then a worse proletariat emerges from the bowels of society. Jesus was right, there will always be the poor among us. Which proves that this humanity is the greatest error that God ever committed.”

O esforço humano consegue, quando muito, converter um proletariado faminto numa burguesia farta; mas surge logo das entranhas da sociedade um proletariado pior. Jesus tinha razão: haverá sempre pobres entre nós. Donde se prova que esta humanidade é o maior erro que jamais Deus cometeu.

"O Natal"; "Christmas" pp. 36-7.
Cartas de Inglaterra (1879–82)

Christopher Hitchens photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“I wiped away the weeds and foam,
And fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore
With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Each and All, st. 3
1840s, Poems (1847)
Variant: I wiped away the weeds and foam,
And fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore
With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.

Tomáš Baťa photo
Russell Brand photo
Ilana Mercer photo

“Wars are generally a rich man's affair and a poor man's fight.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

" Sanctuary City Mayor Trashes An AMERICAN Hero, Robert E. Lee, https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/sanctuary-city-mayor-trashes-an-american-hero-robert-e-lee/" The Abbeville Institute, May 25, 2017
2010s, 2017

Ernestine Rose photo

“What rights have women? … [they are] punished for breaking laws which they have no voice in making. All avenues to enterprise and honors are closed against them. If poor, they must drudge for a mere pittance—if of the wealthy classes, they must be dressed dolls of fashion—parlor puppets…”

Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) American feminist activist

At the Social Reform Convention, Boston (1844), quoted in Kolmerten, Carol A., The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999, p. 49.

Albert Barnes photo
Helen Suzman photo

“Don't think for a moment that Mbeki is not anti-white - he is, most definitely. His speeches all have anti-white themes and he continues to convince everyone that there are two types of South African - the poor black and the rich white.”

Helen Suzman (1917–2009) South African politician

As quoted in "Democracy? It was better under apartheid, says Helen Suzman" https://web.archive.org/web/20120901223952/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1462042/Democracy-It-was-better-under-apartheid-says-Helen-Suzman.html (15 May 2004), by Jane Flanagan, The Telegraph
2000s

Herbert Hoover photo

“Being a politician is a poor profession. Being a public servant is a noble one.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

On Growing Up: Letters to American Boys & Girls (1962); also quoted in Herbert Hoover On Growing Up: Letters from and to American Children (1990) edited by Timothy Walch

Hans Freudenthal photo
Anne Brontë photo
Owen Seaman photo

“Whene’er I walk the public ways,
How many poor that lack ablution
Do probe my heart with pensive gaze,
And beg a trivial contribution!”

Owen Seaman (1861–1936) Editor of Punch

"The bitter Cry of the great Unpaid" in In Cap and Bells (1899), p. 76. Compare "Whene’er I walk this beauteous earth, How many poor I see, But as I never speaks to them, They never speaks to me", from an anonymous travesty.

Frances Kellor photo
Jack Vance photo
Derren Brown photo

“No man's more fortunate than he who's poor,
Since for the worse his fortune cannot change.”

Diphilus Athenian poet of New Comedy

Fragment 23
Fabulae Incertae

“When the idle poor
Become the idle rich
You'll never know
just who is who
or who is which.”

Yip Harburg (1896–1981) American song lyricist

"When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" in Finian's Rainbow (1946) - Fred Astaire version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmW0FA93cJc

Ignatius Sancho photo
Alexander Maclaren photo
Bruce Schneier photo

“It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.”

Bruce Schneier (1963) American computer scientist

Secrets and Lies (2000), p. 53
Politics and societal issues of the digital age

Josh Billings photo

“When i see a poor, and proud aristokrat, purtiklar about punktillio, he alwus puts me in mind ov a drunken man, trieing tew walk a crack.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

Thomas Hughes photo
Edgar Degas photo
Lalu Prasad Yadav photo

“I know some people say I can be funny. But there is always a deeper meaning to what I say. I am a socialist at heart and have the interests of the poor in mind. When people see how I manage to work my way out of tough situations, it gives them hope in their own life”

Lalu Prasad Yadav (1948) Indian politician

In an interview to Siddharth Srivastava ( India's man for all seasons, Asia Times, September 29, 2004, 2006-05-29 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FI29Df02.html,).

“Being really poor is frightening, and draining, but I got through it.”

Rob Payne (1973) Canadian writer

Source: Working Class Zero (2003), Chapter 17, p. 141

Harry Blackmun photo
L. Frank Baum photo
William Morley Punshon photo
M. S. Swaminathan photo
Mary Howitt photo

“Yes, in the poor man's garden grow
Far more than herbs and flowers—
Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind,
And joy for weary hours.”

Mary Howitt (1799–1888) English poet, and author

The poor Man's , reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Thomas Carlyle photo
Lima Barreto photo
Georges Clemenceau photo

“His poor marksmanship must be taken into account. We have just won the most terrible war in history, yet here is a Frenchman who misses his target 6 out of 7 times at point-blank range. Of course, this fellow must be punished for the careless use of a dangerous weapon and for poor marksmanship. I suggest that he be locked up for eight years, with intensive training in a shooting gallery.”

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) French politician

Arguing against seeking the death penalty for the anarchist who had attempted to assassinate him on 19 February 1919, shooting at him seven times and hitting him only once in the chest, as quoted in A Time for Angels : The Tragicomic History of the League of Nations (1975) by Elmer Bendine, p. 106
Prime Minister

“If it makes sense to transfer income from rich to poor people within a generation, why shouldn't we transfer income from rich to poor generations?”

Harvey S. Rosen (1949) American economist

Source: Public Finance - International Edition - Sixth Edition, Chapter 18, Deficit Finance, p. 435

Jeremy Corbyn photo
Gioachino Rossini photo

“Dear God, here it is finished, this poor little Mass. Is this sacred music which I have written or music of the devil? I was born for opera buffa, as you well know. A little science, a little heart, that's all. Be blessed, then, and admit me to Paradise.”

Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) Italian composer

Bon Dieu; la voilà terminée, cette pauvre petite messe. Est-ce bien de la musique sacrée que je viens de faire, ou bien de la sacré musique ? J'étais né pour l'opera buffa, tu le sais bien! Peu de science, un peu de coeur, tout est là. Sois donc béni et accorde-moi le Paradis.
Epigraph to his Petite Messe Solennelle (1863). Translation from Emanuele Senici (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Rossini (2004) p. 23.

Julia Child photo

“My, I get so depressed after a poor meal; that's why I can never stay in England for more than a week.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

Letter to Avis DeVoto, January 30, 1953, collected in As Always Julia ed. Joan Reardon, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2010

William Blake photo

“God appears and god is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Source: 1800s, Auguries of Innocence (1803), Line 129

James Thomson (poet) photo

“Poor is the triumph o’er the timid hare!
Scared from the corn, and now to some lone seat
Retired”

Source: The Seasons (1726-1730), Autumn (1730), l. 71-73.

Damian Pettigrew photo
Bernie Sanders photo
Vivek Wadhwa photo
John Adams photo

“I believe there is no one Principle, which predominates in human Nature so much in every Stage of Life, from the Cradle to the Grave, in Males and females, old and young, black and white, rich and poor, high and low, as this Passion for Superiority.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to Abigail Adams (22 May 1777), as quoted in And the War Came: The Slavery Quarrel and the American Civil War https://books.google.com/books?id=WbFznb7PSGsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, by Donald J. Meyers
1770s

Iain Banks photo
Arundhati Roy photo
Owen Lovejoy photo

“He who cuts off his nose takes poor revenge for a shame inflicted on him.”
Male ulciscitur dedecus sibi illatum, qui amputat nasum suum.

Peter of Blois French poet and diplomat

De Hierosolymitana peregrinatione acceleranda (1189), cited from Mary Beth Rose (ed.) Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986) p. 29; translation from John Simpson The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) p. 55.
A similar proverb, Qui son nez cope deshonore son vis, appears in the late 12th century chanson de geste Garin le Loheren, line 2877.

Pamela Anderson photo
Christopher Pitt photo
Alexander Pope photo

“The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole
Can never be a mouse of any soul.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

"The Wife of Bath her Prologue, from Chaucer" (c.1704, published 1713), lines 298-299. Compare: "I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke, That hath but on hole for to sterten to", Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, "The Wif of Bathes Prologue", line 6154; "The mouse that hath but one hole is quickly taken", George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum.

Bernard Cornwell photo
John Muir photo
Margaret Sanger photo
Mickey Mantle photo
Hector Berlioz photo

“Poor devils! Where do these unfortunate creatures come from? On what butcher's block will they meet their end? What reward does municipal munificence allot them for thus cleaning (or dirtying) the pavements of Paris? At what age are they sent to the glue factory? What becomes of their bones (their skin is good for nothing)?”

Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) French Romantic composer

Pauvres diables!... D'où sortent ces malheureux êtres ?... À quel Montfaucon vont-ils mourir ?... Que leur octroie la munificence municipale pour nettoyer (ou salir) ainsi le pavé de Paris ?... À quel âge les envoie-t-on à l'équarrissage ?... Que fait-on de leurs os ? (leur peau n'est bonne à rien.)
Les Grotesques de la Musique (Paris: A. Bourdilliat, 1859) p. 89; Alastair Bruce (trans.) The Musical Madhouse (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2003) pp. 54-56.
Of critics

Murray Leinster photo
Prem Rawat photo
William Cobbett photo

“In one point, and that too of more importance than is generally attached to it, the puritans of the two epochs bear a critical resemblance, namely, their hostility to rural and athletic sports: to those sports, which string the nerves and strengthen the frame, which excite an emulation in deeds of hardihood and valour, and which imperceptibly instill honour, generosity, and a love of glory, into the mind of the clown. Men thus formed are pupils unfit for the puritanical school; therefore it is, that the sect are incessantly labouring to eradicate, fibre by fibre, the last poor remains of English manners. And, sorry I am to tell you, that they meet with but too many abettors, where they ought to meet with resolute foes. Their pretexts are plausible: gentleness and humanity are the cant of the day. Weak men are imposed on, and wise men want the courage to resist. Instead of preserving those assemblages and those sports, in which the nobleman mixed with his peasants, which made the poor man proud of his inferiority, and created in his breast a personal affection for his lord, too many of the rulers of this land are now hunting the common people from every scene of diversion, and driving them to a club or a conventicle, at the former of which they suck in the delicious rudiments of earthly equality, and, at the latter, the no less delicious doctrine, that there is no lawful king but King Jesus.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (27 February 1802).

Ela Bhatt photo

“Systems are needed, for example for management, accounting, skill development and MIS to serve the needs of the working poor.”

Ela Bhatt (1933) founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (SEWA)

Discussion with Ela Bhatt, Founder, Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA)

B.K.S. Iyengar photo
Julius Streicher photo
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo

“Those who think that the Jews are poor unfortunates, arrived here by chance, carried by the wind, led by fate, and so on, are mistaken. All the Jews who exist on the face of the earth form a great community, bound by blood and Talmudic religion. They are parts of a truly implacable state, which has laws, plans and leaders who formulate these plans and carry them through. The whole thing is organised in the form of a so-called 'Kehillah'. This is why we are faced, not with isolated Jews, but with a constituted force, the Jewish community. In any of our cities or countries where a given number of Jews are gathered, a Kehillah is immediately set up, that is to say the Jewish community. This Kehillah has its leaders, its own judiciary, and so on. And it is in this small Kehillah, whether at the city or at the national level, that all the plans are formed : how to win the local politicians, the authorities; how to work one's way into circles where it would be useful to get admitted, for example, among the magistrates, the state employees, the senior officials; these plans must be carried out to take a certain economic sector away from a Romanian's hands; how an honest representative of an authority opposed to the Jewish interests could be eliminated; what plans to apply, when, oppressed, the population rebels and bursts in anti-Semitic movements.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Jewish Problem

Alastair Reynolds photo
Jon Sobrino photo
Dinah Craik photo
William Blake photo
Jozef Israëls photo

“.. isn't it stupid that what you were writing in your article is still understood by so few people. Among others there was somebody - I believe in the [magazine] 'Nieuws van de Dag' -, who thought the 'Old woman in front of the hearth' [painting of Israels]….- how beautifully painted - was as sickening subject. - Furthermore, Alberd. Thijm [Dutch art-critic and very critical of Israel's' often applied 'dejection'] was also raving strongly about my pulling down of the togs of the poor people. Well-roared, lion, I thought - well understood [ironic! ] for what reason I painted it.. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

version in original Dutch (citaat van Jozef Israëls in Nederlands): ..is het niet gek dat wat gij zegt in uw stuk nog door zo weinig mensen begrepen wordt. Onder anderen was er iemand ik geloof in het 'Nieuws van den Dag', die de 'oude vrouw bij den haard' [in een schilderij van Israels].. ..hoe mooi ook geschilderd walgelijk zegge walgelijk van onderwerp vond. – Voorts is [kunst-criticus, erg kritisch op Israëls' vaak toegepaste 'neerslachtigheid'] ook erg aan 't malen geweest over mijn omhalen van de plunje van de arme lui. Goed gebruld leeuw dacht ik – goed begrepen [ironisch!] waarvoor het geschilderd is..
In a letter, 10 May 1885, to A.S. Kok in The Hague; in R.K.D. The Hague: Archive of A.S. Kok
Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1871 - 1900

Maria Nikiforova photo

“Cossacks, I must tell you that you are the butchers of the Russian workers. Will you continue to be so in the future, or will you acknowledge your own wickedness and join the ranks of the oppressed? Up to now you have shown no respect for the poor workers. For one of the tsar's rubles or a glass of wine, you have nailed them living to the cross.”

Maria Nikiforova (1885–1919) Revolutionary, anarchist

Speech to cossack cavalry loyal to the White movement.
[harv, Archibald, Malcolm, http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/marusya.htm, Atamansha: the Story of Maria Nikiforova, the Anarchist Joan of Arc, Black Cat Press, Dublin, 19, 2007, 9780973782707, 239359065]

C. Rajagopalachari photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
Jean Meslier photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Arthur Helps photo

“The greatest luxury of riches is that they enable you to escape so much good advice. The rich are always advising the poor; but the poor seldom return the compliment.”

Arthur Helps (1813–1875) British writer

Source: Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms. (1871), p. 181

Carl Barus photo
Jimmy Carter photo

“If you don't want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying that you want a country based on Christian values. Because you don't.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

The correct attribution http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/carterpoor.asp is comedian John Fugelsang, on the TV program Viewpoint (29 May 2013)
Misattributed

Matthew Prior photo

“A Rechabite poor Will must live,
And drink of Adam's ale.”

Matthew Prior (1664–1721) British diplomat, poet

The Wandering Pilgrim.; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Woodrow Wilson photo

“I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Address on Latin American Policy before the Southern Commercial Congress http://books.google.com/books?id=_VYEIml1cAkC&q=%22I+would+rather+belong+to+a+poor+nation+that+was+free+than+to+a+rich+nation+that+had+ceased+to+be+in+love+with+liberty%22&pg=PA20#v=onepage Mobile, Alabama (27 October 1913)
1910s

Julian of Norwich photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus photo

“One stroke of sword and all the world is yours.
Make plain to all men that the crowds who decked
Pompeius' hundred pageants scarce were fit
For one poor triumph.”

Et primo ferri motu prosternite mundum; sitque palam, quas tot duxit Pompeius in urbem curribus, unius gentes non esse triumphi.

Book VII, line 278 (tr. E. Ridley).
Pharsalia

A. P. Herbert photo

“As my poor father used to say
In 1863,
Once people start on all this Art
Goodbye, moralitee!
And what my father used to say
Is good enough for me.”

A. P. Herbert (1890–1971) British politician

"Lines for a Worthy Person", Ballads for Broadbrows (1930).

Alex Salmond photo

“Is not because I am a poor sailor and fear the voyage to Skye.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Lecture (December 19, 2007)

Aldous Huxley photo
Caratacus photo

“And can you, then, who have got such possessions and so many of them, covet our poor huts?”

Caratacus (15–54) British chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe

Cassius Dio Roman History Bk. LXI, ch. 33, sect. 3c; translation from John Creighton Coins and Power in Late Iron Age Britain (Cambridge: CUP, 2000) p. 92.
Said after having seen Rome for the first time.

Vladimir Lenin photo
Alfred P. Sloan photo
Nicholas Barr photo

“It has been argued that relatively poor people will borrow to buy a house, so why not to buy a degree?”

Nicholas Barr (1943) British economist

Source: Economics Of The Welfare State (Fourth Edition), Chapter 14, Higher Education, p. 323

Henry Clay Work photo
Michael Moorcock photo
John Fante photo