Quotes about poor
page 6

“As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don't think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, 'I'm probably no better than you, but I'm certainly your equal.”

Harper Lee (1926–2016) American author

Truth, Thinking

“Impatience is a poor substitute for a well-considered plan.”

David Eddings (1931–2009) American novelist

Source: Demon Lord of Karanda

“What deity in the realms of dementia, what rabid god decocted out of the smoking lobes of hydrophobia could have devised a keeping place for souls so poor as is this flesh. This mawky worm-bent tabernacle.”

Cormac McCarthy book Suttree

page 130
Source: Suttree (1979)
Context: Put away these frozenjawed primates and their annals of ways beset and ultimate dark. What deity in the realms of dementia, what rabid god decocted out of the smoking lobes of hydrophobia could have devised a keeping place for souls so poor as in this flesh. This mawky wormbent tabernacle.

God, Soul

“Infinity is a dreadfully poor place. They can never manage to make ends meet.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

“Poor empty pants
With nobody inside them.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

“Most lead lives at worst so painful, at best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principle appetites of the soul.”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

Source: The Doors of Perception

Pain, Soul

“It only takes one mistake and nothing else you ever do will matter. No matter how hard you work or how smart you become, you'll always be known for that one poor choice.”

Chuck Palahniuk Snuff

Source: Snuff

“No,' he said, 'memory's a poor thing to have. It's your own real hair and mouth and arms and eyes and hands I want. I didn't know I could ever love anything so much…”

Philip Pullman book The Amber Spyglass

Source: The Amber Spyglass

Love, Memory

“I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Life, World, Time

“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience - well, that comes from poor judgment.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

“We aren't poor," my mother said, again and again. "Because we're rich in love.”

Cheryl Strayed book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Source: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Love

“The cry of the poor is is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is.”

Howard Zinn book A People's History of the United States

Source: A People's History of the United States

Justice, Cry

“The best thing you can do for the poor is.. not be one of them”

Andrew Matthews (1948) British writer

Source: Being Happy!

“Being poor is not an indication of potential or worth. It’s a lack of resources.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: A Perfect Blood

“As I have said before, the ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry but they cannot kill ignorance, illnesses, poverty or hunger.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Speech at the International Conference on Financing for Development (March 2002) http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2002/ing/f210302i.html

Hunger

“That the young rich smell the stink of the poor and learn to find it a bit amusing. They had to laugh, otherwise it would be too terrifying.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

Learning

“Riches seem to come to the poor in spirit, the poor in interest and joy. To put it straight - the very rich are a poor bunch of bastards”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Joy

“Liquor is the chloroform which enables the poor man to endure the painful operation of living.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Pain

“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”

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

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter I, Part II, 775.

Reality

“If there is no friendship with them [the poor] and no sharing of the life of the poor, then there is no authentic commitment to liberation, because love exists only among equals.”

Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928) Peruvian theologian

Source: A Theology of Liberation

Love, Life, Friendship

“A poor original is better than a good imitation.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

“This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before…The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of spirit.”

Ayn Rand book Anthem

Source: Anthem (1937)

“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.”

Herman Melville book Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs

Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs (1854)

Housing

“All broken hearts are circumstantial. Every lovelorn jerk is the victim of bad timing, good intentions, and someone else’s poor decision making.”

Joshua Ferris Then We Came to the End

Source: Then We Came to the End

Jerk, Decision, Time, Heart

“We are never so poor that we cannot bless another human being, are we? So it is that every evil, whether moral or material, results in good. You'll see.”

Louise Erdrich book The Round House

Source: The Round House

Evil

“We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.”

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

“Poor Kate,” said Constance, “she’s lost her marbles.”

Trenton Lee Stewart The Mysterious Benedict Society

Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society

“Being with you is the best thing that's ever happened to me, the one perfect decision I've made in a lifetime of fumbling and poor judgment. I'd go through it all again to be by your side. Never doubt that. Never doubt how I feel about you.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: The Ruby Circle

Feeling, Decision, Perfection

“Mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.”

Jon Krakauer (1954) American outdoors writer and journalist

Dreams, Mountain

“Some minds are like soup in a poor restaurant—better left unstirred.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

“Poor gosling. It hurts to be lost. And worse to be home with no kind of homecoming… I'll be lucky if I can do as well as you when all this's done, just a bit out of breath, a bit bruised and scratched, a bit wiser and sadder for it all.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

Home, Hurt

“Caliph Vathek and his dark horde
Are bound for Hell, you won’t be bored!
Your faith in me will be restored—
Unless this token you find untoward
And my poor gift you have ignored.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Faith, Hell

“Yes, I read. I have that absurd habit. I like beautiful poems, moving poetry, and all theof that poetry. I am extraordinarily sensitive to those poor, marvelous words left in our dark night by a few men I never knew.”

Louis Aragon (1897–1982) French poet, novelist and editor

Source: Treatise on Style

Men, Beauty, Reading, Night

“He was from a different class, too poor, and they would never approve if their daughter became serious with someone like him.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Daughters

“As he mused about these things, he realised that he had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 44.

Thinking

“You can’t save others from themselves because those who make a perpetual muddle of their lives don’t appreciate your interfering with the drama they’ve created. They want your poor-sweet-baby sympathy, but they don’t want to change.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: T is for Trespass

Change, Baby

“Religion is the opium of the poor”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Religion

“In the minds of great managers, consistent poor performance is not primarily a matter of weakness, stupidity, disobedience, or disrespect. It is a matter of miscasting.”

Marcus Buckingham (1966) British writer

Stupidity

“Poor me. There's nothing so sweet as wallowing in it is there? Wallowing is sex for depressives.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Sex

“We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it means danger, revolution, anarchy.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Flying

“I had that trapped feeling, like some sort of a poor insect that you've put inside a downturned glass, and it tries to climb up the sides, and it can't, and it can't, and it can't.”

Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968) American author and screenwriter

Source: Blues of a Lifetime: The Autobiography of Cornell Woolrich

Feeling

“Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?" I say.
"It must be. The sensation is completely new. How have you managed it all these years?" he asks.
"Just avoid mirrors. You'll forget about it," I say.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Life, Time, Forgetting

“What's all this about yanking poor Magnus and Alec back from their vacation?" Isabelle demanded. "They have opera tickets!”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“Poor Earthworm,' the Ladybird said, whispering in James's ear. 'He loves to make everything into a disaster. He hates to be happy. He is only happy when he is gloomy.”

Roald Dahl James and the Giant Peach

Source: James and the Giant Peach

Love, Hate, Happiness

“The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

“"Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?" I say.
"It must be. The sensation's completely new. How have you managed it all these years?"”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Katniss and Finnick, p. 316
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire (2009)

Life, Time

“No doubt she was thinking, Who dressed this poor girl like a traffic light?”

Rick Riordan book The Hidden Oracle

Source: The Hidden Oracle

Girl, Thinking, Light

“To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it.”

E.M. Forster book Howards End

Source: Howards End

People

“Give me a few minutes.”
“You have time.” He sat in the grass.
“Are you just going to sit there and watch me?”
“Yes. Watching pretty peasant girls is what we poor little rich boys do best.”
“Peasant?”
He shrugged. “You started the name calling.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: On the Edge

Girl, Boy, Grass, Time

“Whoever coined the phrase 'a man's got to play the hand that was dealt him' was most certainly one piss-poor bluffer.”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

“All that day she had had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Feeling

“When the rich make war, it's the poor that die.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Quand les riches se font la guerre, ce sont les pauvres qui meurent.
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)
Source: Le diable et le bon dieu

War

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

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.

Help

“A choir is made up of many voices, including yours and mine. If one by one all go silent then all that will be left are the soloists.

Don’t let a loud few determine the nature of the sound. It makes for poor harmony and diminishes the song.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Nature

“I don't know. I do think, half of what we call madness is just some poor slob dealing with pain by a strategy that annoys the people around him.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Mirror Dance

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)

Pain, People, Thinking, Madness

“The poor go to war, to fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

War, Fight

“No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

Source: Leviathan

Life, Death, Fear, Art

“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

As quoted in News Journal [Mansfield, Ohio] (3 August 1965)
Attributed from posthumous publications

Money, Business, Business, For Team

“'Is that really the best you can say? An average-looking boy? An awful lot of boys are average-looking, S. Q.!' And poor S. Q., he just kept arguing that 'this boy was especially average-looking.' " ~ Kate Wetherall, The Mysterious Benedict Society”

Trenton Lee Stewart (1970) Novelist

Boy

“For those who are poor in happiness, each time is a first time; happiness never becomes a habit.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Source: My Story

Happiness, Time

“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?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Girl

“Facing the difficulties, I can choose either to be a poor victim or a great adventurer.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

“I'll wager I would have screwed things up regardless. But… can you imagine those poor bastards grappling their prey, leaping over the rails, swords in hand, screaming, 'Your cats! Give us all your gods-damned cats!”

Scott Lynch book Red Seas Under Red Skies

Source: Red Seas Under Red Skies

God, Imagination, Cats

“Now we're in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated. But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss and Plutarch Heavensbee (p. 379)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)
Context: “Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?” I ask.
“Oh, not now. Now we’re in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated,” he says. “But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss.”
“What?” I ask.
“The time it sticks. Maybe we are witnessing the evolution of the human race. Think about that.“

Stupidity, Thinking, Memory

“Haste is a poor counselor”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

“The poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Inscription on the monument of a Newfoundland dog (1808).

Life, Dogs

“It's awful to be rich and mind-boggingly handsome and have women fawn over you. My heart bleeds for you. Poor dear, how do you manage?”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: On the Edge

Women, Heart

“My religion consists of an humble admiration for the vast power which manifests itself in that small part of the universe which our poor, weak minds can grasp!”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1930s, Wisehart interview (1930)
Context: I do not believe in a God who maliciously or arbitrarily interferes in the personal affairs of mankind. My religion consists of an humble admiration for the vast power which manifests itself in that small part of the universe which our poor, weak minds can grasp!

Religion, Universe, Parting

“I can only say that I am nothing but a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation.”

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War

Christ

“But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Variant: We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self destruction.
Source: Mockingjay

Stupidity, Thinking, Memory

“Doubt may be a poor encouragement to do anything, but it is a bad reason for doing nothing.”

George MacDonald book Lilith

Source: Lilith

“That's the story of my life rich or poor and mostly poor and truly poor.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

Life

“The American Indians were Communists. They were. Every anthropologist will tell you they were Communists. No rich, no poor. If somebody needed something the community chipped in.”

Pete Seeger (1919–2014) American folk singer

Communication

“But isn't it time for Christians to admit that we should reject bargains if they are gained by the exploitation of the poorest of the poor in developing countries?”

Tony Campolo (1935) American sociologist

Source: Red Letter Christians: A Christian's Guide to Faith and Politics, a Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics

Time, Country

“He learned that when people are very poor they still have something to give and the impulse to give it.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

People, Learning

“The more ugly, old, nasty, ill, and poor I become the more I want to get my own back by producing vibrant, well-arranged, radiant colour.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

“I guess we're even, Sadie. First, Walt and I rushed off to save you in London. Then, you and Walt rushed off to save me. The only one who got shafted on both deals was Walt. Poor guy gets hauled all over the world pulling us out of trouble”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

World, Guy

“I am crushed by your poor opinion
But will endeavor to carry on.”

Jayne Ann Krentz (1948) American novelist

Source: Second Sight

“You are Joseph the dreamer of dreams, dear Jude.
And a tragic Don Quixote. And sometimes you are St. Stephen, who, while they
were stoning him, could see Heaven opened. Oh, my poor friend and comrade,
you'll suffer yet!”

Thomas Hardy book Jude the Obscure

Source: Jude the Obscure

Dreams, Suffering

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

On being informed that Faulkner had said that Hemingway "had never been known to use a word that might send the reader to the dictionary." Pt. 1, Ch. 4
Papa Hemingway (1966)

Thinking