Quotes about poor
page 5

“Nothing was easy, and sometimes she failed, and sometimes she thought that the fairy stories were right, that there must indeed be easier ways of living happily ever after; but defeat is a poor ending to any tale, so she kept trying.”

Sonya Hartnett (1968) Australian writer

Source: The Ghost's Child

“Clearly, America has no shortage of metaphorical opportunities for the poor.”

Stephen Colbert book I Am America (And So Can You!)

Source: I Am America

“I blame my mother for my poor sex life. All she told me was 'the man goes on top and the woman underneath.' For three years my husband and I slept in bunk beds.”

Joan Rivers (1933–2014) American comedian, actress, and television host

“Sometimes it's about playing a poor hand well.”

Donna Tartt book The Goldfinch

Source: The Goldfinch

“Because we were a poor area, the school had a small budget and was unable to teach the second half of the alphabet.”

George Carlin book Brain Droppings

Source: Brain Droppings

“I've heard that the best way to help poor people is to make sure you don't become one of them”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life

People, Way, Help

“Those who cannot see Christ in the poor are atheists indeed.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

“Poor strangers, they have so much to be afraid of.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

First lines.
Source: Middlemarch (1871)

“If you are lonely, please know you can find. If you are discouraged, please know you can find. If you are poor in spirit, please know you can be. If you feel you are broken, please know you can be.”

Jeffrey R. Holland (1940) Mormon leader

Source: Created for Greater Things

“If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

No. 1
Letters On a Regicide Peace (1796)

“Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington (16 January 1787)
1780s
Variant: Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Source: Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“Alas, poor Yorick!" he said. "She heard mermaids, so it follows that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. I have caught an everlasting cold, but luckily I am terribly dishonest. I cling to that.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“To be poor without murmuring is difficult. To be rich without being proud is easy.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Analects of Confucius

“He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

“Sane is rich and powerful. Insane is wrong and poor and weak. The rich are free, the poor are put in cages. Res Ipsa Loquitur, amen. Mahalo.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Source: Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

“Avery's tone was grand and high-pitched." And, since I've been hanging out with you, Dad's decided I'm on good behavior now."
"Poor oblivious bastard," murmured Christian.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter VIII, p. 94.

Happiness, People, Parting, Clothes

“And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

“Poor creatures. What did we do to you? With all our schemes and plans?”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

“It’d be a poor kind of world where there was just one explanation for things. ---Rhiow”

Diane Duane book To Visit the Queen

Source: To Visit the Queen

“We want you gone. Your presence is obviously upsetting for her."

"Oh, aye, the poor, wee lass -- who tossed me like a skipping stone.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night

“Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Happiness, People, Music

“This is to assuage our conscience, darling" she would explain to Blanca. "But it doesn't help the poor. They don't need charity; they need justice.”

Isabel Allende book The House of the Spirits

Source: The House of the Spirits

“Tradition is a pretty poor excuse for perpetrating stereotypes.”

Ramsey Campbell (1946) English author

“Look at him now, poor fellow. That's what a dose of reality does for you… Never touch the stuff myself, you understand. Find it gets in the way of the hallucinations.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Way, Understanding, Reality

“We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

“Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.”

Sholem Aleichem (1859–1916) Yiddish author and playwright

Life, Dreams, Fools, Game

“If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Variant: If you're in trouble or hurt or need–go to poor people. They're the only ones that'll help–the only ones.
Source: The Grapes of Wrath

People, Help, Hurt, Hurtful

“I think that everything he did, feeding the poor, giving money to friends in need, it was all a way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner (2003)

Money, Way, Thinking

“My father had a theory that poor people are the best drivers because they can’t afford to carry car insurance and have to drive like they live, defensively.”

Paul Beatty book The Sellout

Source: The Sellout

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) American poet

“Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Jesus is the starving, the parched, the prisoner, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the dying. Jesus is the oppressed, the poor. To live with Jesus is to live with the poor. To live with the poor is to live with Jesus.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Community And Growth

“As usual, in every scheme that worsens the position of the poor, it is the poor who are invoked as beneficiaries.”

Vandana Shiva (1952) Indian philosopher

“It is a good thing to know what it is to be poor, and a better thing if you can do it in company.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus The New Colossus

The New Colossus (1883)

“Life is a banquet and most poor s. o. b.'s are starving to death." Auntie Mame”

Patrick Dennis (1921–1976) Novelist

Source: Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade

“But that's men all over… Poor dears, they can't help it. They haven't got logical minds.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Busman's Honeymoon

Source: Busman's Honeymoon

“Hey, Clary. You take care of yourself," he said. "I know you can." He paused. "And take care of Jace, that poor, helpless blond."
Jace made an obscene gesture, which actually did feel familiar to Simon, so he knew that was their thing.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy

“Baby, we have no choice of what color we're born or who our parents are or whether we're rich or poor. What we do have is some choice over what we make of our lives once we're here.”

Mildred D. Taylor book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Source: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Color, Parent, Baby

“Yesterday when we went over the plan again and again, I never thought about Grandad showing up. Because I'm an idiot, basically--an idiot with poor planning skills. Of course he's here. Where else would he be?

Seriously, what else could go wrong?”

Holly Black book White Cat

Source: White Cat

“He was poor, yet always appeared to be giving something away; a stranger, yet everyone was his friend; no longer young, but as happy-hearted as a boy; plain and peculiar, yet his face looked beautiful to many.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Happiness, Beauty, Boy, Appearance

“I think you ought to let me take poor Tessa into town to get some new clothes. Otherwise, the first time she takes a deep breath, that dress will fall right off her."
Will looked interested. "I think she should try that out now and see what happens.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Thinking, Time, Clothes

“A woman may be beautiful but have poor character. A man may be a business genius, making money left and right, but lack common courtesy, sensitivity, and compassion.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Source: Waiting and Dating

Money, Beauty, Business

“If you were the poor, suffering was your currency.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

“poor boy! I never knew you, Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Source: Drum Taps

“I'd rather see you poor men's wives, if you were happy, beloved, contented, than queen's on thrones, without self-respect and peace.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Men, Happiness, Peace

“You can tell if people are following Jesus, because they are feeding the poor, sharing their wealth, and trying to get everyone medical insurance.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

“I endeavored to renounce society, that I might avoid temptation. But it was a poor religion; so far as it prevailed, only tended to make me gloomy, stupid, unsociable, and useless.”

John Newton (1725–1807) Anglican clergyman and hymn-writer

Stupidity, Religion

“My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Books, World, Sadness, School

“You must be poor.
why?
cuz ur not making any cents!”

Lisi Harrison (1970) Canadian writer

“Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won't all be poor.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

“O words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away”

John Clare (1793–1864) English poet

Source: Poems Chiefly from Manuscript

“I don't think anybody cares about unwed mothers unless they're black or poor. The question is not morality, the question is money. That's what we're upset about.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Money, Question, Thinking

“HIGGINS. Have you no morals, man?
DOOLITTLE [unabashed] Cant afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me.”

George Bernard Shaw Pygmalion

Source: Pygmalion

“Poor Congo, barefoot bride of men who took her jewels and promised the Kingdom.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

“They have terrified my poor wife and threatened my very person!"
Halt eyed the man impassivley until the outburst was finished.
Worse than that," he said quietly, "they've wasted my time.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Icebound Land

Time, Personality

“It's never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn't hurt you.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt.1, ch.11
Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Thinking, Hurt, Personality

“What kind of justice is this?
Where the poor go to prison and the rich go free.
Where witnesses are rented, bought, or bribed.
Where people are tried not because of any criminal actions but because of their political beliefs.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

Source: Assata: An Autobiography

People, Justice

“When a poor man gives something, that is a sacrifice indeed. When a rich man gives something, it hardly rises to the same level.”

David Baldacci (1960) American author

“Rich men have dreams. Poor men die to make them come true.”

Glen Cook book Water Sleeps

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 87 (p. 314)

“Poor bastard. Wait 'till he sees the bats.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

“Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

War, History, Communication, Fish

“The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book -- it makes a very poor doorstop.”

Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British filmmaker

“Look at your body—
A painted puppet, a poor toy
Of jointed parts ready to collapse,
A diseased and suffering thing
With a head full of false imaginings.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

Description: from the The Dhammapada
Source: The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)

Disease, Imagination, Suffering, Parting

“I felt a little guilty about jangling the poor bugger's brains with that evil fantasy. But what the hell? Anybody who wanders around the world saying, "Hell yes, I'm from Texas," deserves whatever happens to him.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Source: The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time

World, Hell, Evil

“Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: 'You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

God, Truth, Despair

“Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

Democracy, Time

“The rich get richer and the poor get - children.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

“Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter to Fanny Knight (1817-03-13) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“In mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Source: On Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia"

“… and with my last thought I felt some real sympathy for those poor chickens.”

Shannon Hale book Book of a Thousand Days

Source: Book of a Thousand Days

“Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

“Listen to me, Siddalee, and listen good: There is no excuse to let your looks go, no matter how poor you are. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, but honey let me tell you, ugliness will get you nowhere.”

Rebecca Wells book Little Altars Everywhere

Source: Little Altars Everywhere

“I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Feeling, Communication

“People love to admit they have bad handwriting or that they can't do math. And they will readily admit to being awkward: 'I'm such a klutz!' But they will never admit to having a poor sense of humor or being a bad driver.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Love, People, Sense

“School has become the world religion of a modernized proletariat, and makes futile promises of salvation to the poor of the technological age.”

Ivan Illich book Deschooling Society

Source: Deschooling Society

Age, World, School, Religion

“I was fairly poor
but most of my money went
for wine and
classical music.
I loved to mix the two
together.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Love, Money, Music, Wine

“No, not rich. I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

“Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time rich and cash poor.”

Cory Doctorow Little Brother

Source: Little Brother (2008)

“Anyway, seeking work is a tad difficult given the poor design of the streets with their prohibitive curbs and driveways that don't quite line up.”

Steve Martin book The Pleasure of My Company

Source: The Pleasure of My Company

“Now I know I am an intellectual. I saw Malcolm Muggeridge on the television last night, and I understood nearly every word. It all adds up. A bad home, poor diet, not liking punk. I think I will join the library and see what happens.”

Sue Townsend (1946–2014) English writer and humorist

Home, Thinking, Night

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“After the group vet appointment--during which Lyle scratched the vet, the vet tech, and some poor woman minding her own business in the waiting room--we went back to Sabrina's and re-released the cats to their natural habitat.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Cats, Business, Nature, Waiting

“Owls are wise. They are careful and patient. Wisdom precludes boldness. That is why owls make poor heroes.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

“…History is written by the rich, and so the poor get blamed for everything.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs (1954) American economist

"Good Reads" w:Good Reads, https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6440.Jeffrey_D_Sachs

“Poor people wait a lot. Welfare, unemployment lines, laundromats, phone booths, emergency rooms, jails, etc.”

Lucia Berlin (1936–2004) American writer

Source: A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

People, Waiting

“There is a difference between being poor and being broke. Broke is temporary, and poor is eternal.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki book Rich Dad Poor Dad

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

“Mr. Rochester never courted Jane Eyre," Tessa pointed out.
"No, he dressed up as a woman and terrified the poor girl out of her wits. Is that what you want?"
"You would make a very ugly woman."
"I would not. I would be stunning.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“War and drink are the two things man is never too poor to buy.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

“In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. --Aristotle”

Cornel West (1953) African-American philosopher and political/civil rights activist

Source: The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto

“In poor countries, officials receive explicit bribes; in D. C. they get the sophisticated, implicit, unspoken promise to work for large corporations”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“So that's who Finnick loves, I think. Not his string of fancy lovers in the Capitol. But a poor, mad girl back home.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Love, Home, Girl, Lovers

“Better a good journalist than a poor assassin.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

“The truth is sometimes a poor competitor in the market place of ideas – complicated, unsatisfying, full of dilemmas, always vulnerable to misinterpretation and abuse.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

“Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Source: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

“I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“The ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
There's leak, there's a leak, in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who ore the ones that we kept in
charge
Killers, thieves, and lawyers
God's Away, God's away
God's away on Business”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor