Quotes about poor (2608 quotes, page 9)

“Mahomet himself, after all that can be said about him, was not a sensual man. We shall err widely if we consider this man as a common voluptuary, intent mainly on base enjoyments, — nay on enjoyments of any kind. His household was of the frugalest; his common diet barley-bread and water: sometimes for months there was not a fire once lighted on his hearth. They record with just pride that he would mend his own shoes, patch his own cloak. A poor, hard-toiling, ill-provided man; careless of what vulgar men toil for.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Men , Shoe , Light , Water

“When you tread water, you lift yourself up by pushing water down. Likewise, in any social hierarchy, people unsure of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below. I've read that this is why poor whites in the United States are the group most hostile to blacks.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"Why Nerds are Unpopular," February 2003

Hostility , People , Thinking , Water

“I have to inform the House that the present situation is so critical that the Government are compelled to seek special powers from the House by a Bill to be passed through all its stages in both Houses of Parliament to-day. The situation is grave. … The Government are convinced that now is the time when we must mobilise to the full the whole resources of this country. We must throw all our weight into the struggle. Every private interest must give way to the urgent needs of the community. We cannot know what the next few weeks or even days may bring forth, but whatever may come we shall meet it as the British people in the past have met dangers and overcome them. But it is necessary that the Government should be given complete control over persons and property, not just some persons of some particular class of the community, but of all persons, rich and poor, employer and workman, man or woman, and all property.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1940/may/22/business-of-the-house-emergency#S5CV0361P0_19400522_HOC_158 in the House of Commons (22 May 1940) introducing the Emergency Powers Act 1940.
War Cabinet

People , Way , Communication , Time

“Britain's victories are barren; they leave her poor, and they leave her people hungry; they leave her bereft of the markets and the wealth that she possessed six years ago. But above all, they leave her with an immensely greater problem than she had then. We are nearing the end of one phase of Europe's history, but the next will be no happier. It will be grimmer, harder and perhaps bloodier. And now I ask you earnestly, can Britain survive? I am profoundly convinced that without German help she cannot.”

William Joyce (1906–1946) British fascist and propaganda broadcaster

J.W. Hall (ed.), "The Trial of William Joyce" (Notable British Trials series, William Hodge & Co, 1946), p. 302
Broadcast, 30 April 1945. This was Joyce's last broadcast of the war.

People , History , Problem , Victory

“Take care of the poor people of my country.”

Abdul Sattar Edhi (1928–2016) Pakistani philanthropist, social activist, ascetic and humanitarian

Edhi’s dying words, as quoted (with translation from original words in Urdu language) by IlmFeed ( July 9, 2016 http://ilmfeed.com/abdul-sattar-edhi-a-hero-for-the-poor-and-destitute/) and in Gulf Times by Kamran Rehmat ( July 11, 2016 http://www.gulf-times.com/story/502146/The-beloved-distributor-of-hope/), retrieved July 22, 2016

People , Country

“I am a working man as much as you. My father was as poor as any man in this crowd. He was of your own body, entirely. He boasts not—nor do I—of birth, nor of great family distinctions. What he has made, he has made by his own industry and successful commerce. What I have comes from him, and from my own exertions. I have no interest in the extravagance of government; I have no interest in seeking appointments under any government; I have no interest in pandering to the views of any government; I have nothing to gain by being the tool of any party. I come before you as the friend of my own class and order; as one of the people; as one who would, on all occasions, be the firm defender of your rights, and the asserter of all those privileges to which you are justly entitled. It is on these grounds that I offer myself to your notice; it is on these grounds that I solicit your suffrages.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech during the general election of 1843, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 113.
1840s

People , Family , Birth , Success

““Those who humble themselves will be exalted” is not a promise of future prestige to those who have no prestige now or to those who have given up all reliance upon prestige. It is the promise that they will no longer be treated as inferior but will receive full recognition as human beings. Just as the poor are not promised wealth but the satisfaction of their needs — no one shall want; so the little ones are not promised status and prestige but the full recognition of their dignity as human beings.”

Albert Nolan (1934) South African priest and activist

Source: Jesus Before Christianity: The Gospel of Liberation (1976), p. 57.

Future , Wealth

“… yet when the Prime Minister and I knock at the door of these great landlords, and say to them: "Here, you know these poor fellows who have been digging up royalties at the risk of their lives, some of them are old, they have survived the perils of their trade, they are broken, they can earn no more. Won't you give them something towards keeping them out of the workhouse?" they scowl at us. We say, "Only a ha'penny, just a copper". They retort, "You thieves!" And they turn their dogs on to us, and you can hear their bark every morning. If this is an indication of the view taken by these great landlords of their responsibility to the people who, at the risk of life, create their wealth, then I say their day of reckoning is at hand.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Limehouse, East London (30 July 1909), quoted in Better Times: Speeches by the Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), pp. 154-155.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Life , People , Dogs , Wealth

“[T]he capitalists now live entirely by the proceeds of poor men’s labor, which capital enables them to command.”

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) American activist

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 325

Men

“The non-institutional elements of Bretton Woods, such as the gold-backed dollar standard, have gone by the wayside, but the World Bank and the IMF soldier on… Western governments tax their citizens to fund the World Bank, lend this money to corrupt Third World dictators who abscond with the funds, and then demand repayment which is extracted through taxation from poor Third World citizens, rather than from the government officials responsible for the embezzlement. It is in essence a global transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Taxpayers around the world are forced to subsidize the lavish lifestyles of Third World dictators and highly-paid World Bank bureaucrats who don't even pay income tax.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

World Bank Hearing, May 22, 2007 http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2007/cr052307.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNZdba8hDDY
2000s, 2006-2009

Money , World , Wealth

“Dear Jones.. [I] give you some account of.... the last sad ceremonies paid yesterday to departed talent gone to that bourne from whence no traveller returns. Alas, only two short months Sir Thomas followed the coffin of Dawe to the same place. We then were his pall-bearers. Who will do the like for me, or when, God only knows how soon; my poor father's death [Sept. 1829] proved a heavy blow upon me, and has been followed by others of the same dark kind.”

J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker

Quote from Turner's letter, London Feb. 1830, to his friend George Jones in Rome; as cited in 'The life of J.M.W. Turner', Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; https://ia801207.us.archive.org/18/items/lifeofjmwturnerr02thor/lifeofjmwturnerr02thor.pdf Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, p. 233
1821 - 1851

Death , God , Sadness , Travel

“I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A truth and noonday light to thee.”

Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1812–1848) American writer

Life a Duty, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Straight is the line of Duty, / Curved is the line of Beauty, / Follow the straight line, thou hall see / The curved line ever follow thee", William Maccall (c. 1830).

Life , Truth , Lie , Beauty

“So the poor instead of bread made do with a picture
of the bleeding scourged and nailed-up Christ
and prayed to that image of their helplessness”

Peter Weiss Marat/Sade

Marat, act 1, scene 13 (pp. 28-29)
Marat/Sade (1963)

Christ

“It was a passion from my childhood to work for children, I carried it forward. I have been very strongly advocating that poverty must not be used as an excuse to continue child labour. It perpetuates poverty. If children are deprived of education, they remain poor.”

Kailash Satyarthi (1954) Indian children's rights activist

Kailash Satyarthi’s crusade to save childhood continues… (2014)

Children , Education , Passion , Childhood

“Mr. Arkwright, after many years intense and painful application, invented, about the year 1768, his present method of spinning cotton, but upon very different principles from any invention that had gone before it. He was himself a native of Lancashire; but having so recently witnessed the ungenerous treatment of poor Hargrave, by the people of that county, he retired to Nottingham, and obtained a patent in the year 1769, for making cotton, flax, and wool into yarn. But, after some experience, finding that the common method of preparing the materials for spinning (which is essentially necessary to the perfection of good yarn) was very imperfect, tedious, and expensive, he turned his thoughts towards the construction of engines for that purpose; and, in the pursuit, spent several years of intense study and labour, and at last produced an invention for carding and preparing the materials, founded in some measure on the principles of his first machine. These inventions, united, completed his great original plan. But his last machines being very complicated, and containing some things materially different in their construction, and some others materially different in their use, from the inventions for which his first patent was obtained, be procured a patent for these also in December, 1775.”

Richard Arkwright (1732–1792) textile entrepreneur; developer of the cotton mill

Source: The Case of Mr. Richard Arkwright and Co., 1781, p. 23

Pain , Study , Perfection

“But whom do I treat unjustly,' you say, 'by keeping what is my own?' Tell me, what is your own? What did you bring into this life? From where did you receive it? It is as if someone were to take the first seat in the theater, then bar everyone else from attending, so that one person alone enjoys what is offered for the benefit of all in common — this is what the rich do. They seize common goods before others have the opportunity, then claim them as their own by right of preemption. For if we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, and no one would be in need.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

Source: Social Justice, I Will Tear Down My Barns, p. 69

Life , Personality

“it is always a genial laughter. Not at mere weakness, at misery or poverty; never. No man who can laugh, what we call laughing, will laugh at these things. It is some poor character only desiring to laugh, and have the credit of wit, that does so. Laughter means sympathy.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

Laughter

“We've got a quarterback who comes in off the bench and leads us to a victory, and they boo [Rex Grossman] right out of the gate," Poor guy. Lucky for him he's resilient and he came back and led us to two scoring drives. But man, it's tough.”

Brian Urlacher (1978) All-American college football player, professional football player, linebacker

Urlacher angered by fans booing of Grossman http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/rumors/post/Urlacher-angered-by-fans-booing-of-Grossman;_ylt=AsRWap2yjOaYtVxlms4yQIcdsLYF?urn=nfl,119653
Urlacher defends Rex Grossman

Guy , Victory

“When you are alone, never let your clothing fall into disarray. Do not allow yourself to be dirty, have poor posture, or have rude manners when no one is observing you.”

Adolph Freiherr Knigge book Über den Umgang mit Menschen

In deiner Kleidung verfalle nie in Nachlässigkeit, wenn du allein bist. Gehe nicht schmutzig, nicht krumm noch mit groben Manieren einher, wenn dich niemand beobachtet.
Über den Umgang mit Menschen (1788)

Clothes

“You cannot change your past, only the way you think and feel about it. When you look back, is there anything you remember that troubles or upsets you? Do you regret missed opportunities, failed relationships or people that you hurt? Do you feel guilt over things you did wrong and poor decisions made, or anxiety over what people did or said to you?”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

People , Way , Feeling , Thinking

“Is it life?" he answered, "I would rather be without it," he said, "for there is queer small utility in it. You cannot eat it or drink it or smoke it in your pipe, it does not keep the rain out and it is a poor armful in the dark if you strip it and take it to bed with you after a night of porter when you are shivering with the red passion. It is a great mistake and a thing better done without, like bed-jars and foreign bacon.”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

The Third Policeman (1967)

Life , Drink , Passion , Night

“The Jews have shown real genius in profiting by politics. This capitalistic people, which was brought into existence by the unscrupulous exploitation of men, has understood how to get the leadership of the Fourth Estate into its own hands; and by acting both on the Right and on the Left it has its apostles in both camps. On the Right the Jew does his best to encourage all the evils there are to such an extent that the man of the people, poor devil, will be exasperated as much as possible— greed of money, unscrupulousness, hard- heartedness, abominable snobbishness. More and more Jews have wormed their way into our upper-class families; and the consequence has been that the ruling class has been alienated from its own people.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

As quoted in A History of National Socialism, Konrad Heiden, Methuen & Company, LTD, London: UK, 1934, p. 58. Speech in April, 1922
1920s

Men , Money , People , Family

“Once rich, moreover, I should again travel easily about Europe, for while in the public eye a poor radical is dangerous rogue, a rich radical is merely an eccentric gentleman!”

Michael Moorcock book The City in the Autumn Stars

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 1 (p. 181)

Travel

“The Poor Peasants’ Committees are necessary to fight the kulaks, the rich, the exploiters, who shackle the working peasants. But between the kulaks, who are a small minority, and the poor or semi-proletarians there is the section of the middle peasants. The Soviet government has never declared or conducted any struggle against them. Any steps or measures to the contrary must be condemned most vigorously and stopped. The socialist government must pursue a policy of agreement with the middle peasants.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

"Draft of a Telegram to all Soviets of Deputies Concerning the Worker-Peasant Alliance" (16 August 1918) http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/aug/16.htm; Collected Works, Vol. 28.
1910s

Fight

“The sphinx atropos squeakes when hurt, nearly as loud as a mouse, which, when uttered in the most plaintive tone, naturally shocks the human heart, and makes it shudder at the thought of destroying inoffensive animals merely for the sake of curiosity. I cannot help reflecting on this tyranny, this wanton cruelty, exercised by thoughtless man, on many animals but especially in insects: 'tis certain, that every animal possessing life, has feeling; and, therefore, is as capable of suffering pain, as of enjoying pleasure; and, as Shakespeare humanely expresses “The poor beetle crushed beneath the foot, feels the pangs of death as great as when a monarch falls.””

James Barbut English painter and naturalist

Gentle reader, pardon this digression, my feelings commanded my pen.
The Genera Insectorum of Linnæus, Exemplified by Various Specimens English Insects drawn by Nature (1781)

Life , Death , Pain , Pleasure

“The outstanding quality accomplishments of industry during the past decade are familiar history. Particularly during World War II, the accomplishments made by the precision equipment in our tanks and guns and planes were indelibly impressed upon the entire world. This results side of the quality picture makes impressive reading.
Not so pretty a picture is presented when the behind-the-scenes effort to assure these high-quality standards is examined. It may be summarized by noting that many industries are now in a position where, for every dollar spent in planned production, many additional cents are lost owing to the poor quality of their products while in process of manufacture.
These data show that, while we have generally found our quality failures in the factory instead of after shipment, our techniques for so doing are often excessively costly and wasteful. They can be tolerated by no industry striving to maintain and improve its competitive position.
This is a situation with which industry is vitally concerned. It is one calling for the new techniques that have come to be popularly classified under the label of quality control.”

Armand V. Feigenbaum (1922–2014) American businessman

Source: Quality Control: Principles, Practice, and Administration. 1951, p. 8; Chapter 1: What is quality control?

War , World , History , Failure

“He was a fool — a brilliant man and I loved his beard, and there was the mountain ax in his brain, and all the blood poured out, and he could not see the Mexican sun. Your people raised the ax, and the last blood of revolutionary mankind, his poor blood, ran into the carpet.”

Norman Mailer book Barbary Shore

Lannie Madison, on the assassination of Leon Trotsky, in Ch. 21
Barbary Shore (1951)

Love , People , Fools , Mountain

“The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.”

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) American businessman and philanthropist

Source: Wealth, 1889, p. 653

Age , Problem , Wealth

“I wanted to win to feed the hungry people of my community. I didn't want to win to buy a diamond – I didn't have no diamonds then. I didn't want to win to buy a car, I didn't want to win to bring a couple of chicks downtown to a hotel. I wanted to win to feed the poor people of the community.”

Mr. T (1952) American actor and retired professional wrestler

On winning the America's Toughest Bouncer contest.
Attributed

People , Cars , Communication

“The fear of losing money is real. Everyone has it. Even the rich. But it’s not fear that is the problem. It’s how you handle fear. It’s how you handle losing. It’s how you handle failure that makes the difference in one’s life. That goes for anything in life, not just money. The primary difference between a rich person and a poor person is how they handle that fear.”

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!

Life , Money , Fear , Failure

“[SEWA] have been doing many different things, leading the SEWA movement which is about economic freedom for the poor, women, and self employed.”

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)

Women , Freedom

“Narrated Usama: The Prophet said, "I stood at the gate of Paradise and saw that the majority of the people who entered it were the poor, while the wealthy were stopped at the gate (for the accounts). But the companions of the Fire were ordered to be taken to the Fire. Then I stood at the gate of the Fire and saw that the majority of those who entered it were women."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

[7, 62, 124]
Sunni Hadith

Women , People

“Five more times in the succeeding pages of his penciled petition Gideon spoke of the right to counsel. To try a poor man for a felony without giving him a lawyer, he said, was to deprive him of the due process of law.”

Anthony Lewis movie Gideon's Trumpet

[8, Anthony, Lewis, w:Anthony Lewis, Vintage, 1989, 9780679723127, Gideon's Trumpet, http://books.google.com/books?id=IhDfidRb5wIC&pg=PA8&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false]

Law , Time

“The modern world is still suffering from the native incapacity of the Jews to be political. The art of making and preserving a City, which we call be the Greek name, “Politics,” was never an indigenous growth among the Hebrews. The City of the Greeks and the other civilized nations of antiquity was hateful to them. Their ideas were essentially anti-political. The politics of Judaea, when there were any, were borrowed from the Egyptians and Babylonians and, later, from the Greeks. These borrowings were regarded with violent disapproval by the champions of Hebrew orthodoxy, who objected to organized civilization on two grounds. Some, like Amos, hated it just because it was civilization and not nomadic barbarism. It was in the desert that God had made his covenant with the Chosen Race, and in the desert there was nothing else to think about but God. So, Back to the Desert! was their war-cry. Others, the Ebionites, objected to civilization because it was hierarchical, because it made for social inequality. They gave prophetically indignant utterance to the envious hatred of the poor in cash and in spirit against the rich and talented and cultured. A pious and universal mediocrity was their ideal.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

“One and Many,” pp. 17–18
Do What You Will (1928)

God , Hate , War , World

“[W]e need to shove aside the notions of the Progressives and Lost-Causers, that Reconstruction was some sort of Vichy occupation of a poor, pitiable South, as well as of the Marxists, that Reconstruction could have been the beginning of a socialist America had not the monied interests suppressed it. Neither of these approaches has much sense of the texture of Reconstruction’s reality.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Interview with Sara Gabbard (2018)

Reality , Sense

“But no, I just don't think with the scientific evidence now -- I think I read an article yesterday on the death penalty, and 68 percent of the time they make mistakes. And it’s so racist, too. I think more than half the people getting the death penalty are poor blacks. This is the one place, the one remnant of racism in our country is in the court system, enforcing the drug laws and enforcing the death penalty. I don’t even know, but I wonder how many of those, how many have been executed? Over 200, I wonder how many were minorities? You know, if you're rich, you usually don't meet the death penalty.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Interview with the Concord Monitor Editorial Board, (August 18, 2011)
2011

Death , People , Law , Penalty

“While one welcomes aid that gets through to help the poorest people in the poorest parts of the world, does my hon. Friend share my concern that some policies, particularly those adopted by the World Bank in its advice to poor countries in receipt of loans it organises, force on those countries economic models that often involve cuts in public expenditure which make the living conditions of people dependent on public services, health, education or housing worse because those countries are pursuing some economic Valhalla similar to that pursued by the present Government? Does he believe that the Government should consider their role in multinational agencies such as the World Bank as well as my hon. Friend's obvious and quite correct concern about the lack of spending on overseas aid in general?”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Question http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1988/jul/28/overseas-aid-and-development in the House of Commons (28 July 1988).
1980s

People , Health , World , Education

“Under Socialism, you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live, you would have to live well.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

The Intelligent Woman's Guide: To Socialism and Capitalism, New York: NY, Brentano (1928) p. 670.
1920s

Clothes

“I brought Durand eight pictures, among them my 'Sunset' and the motif done from my window. They have been praised, but I find them poor, - tame, grey, monotonous, - I am not at all satisfied. - I am working with fury and I have finally discovered the right execution, the search for which has tormented me for a year. I am pretty sure I have it now, all I need is to spend this coming autumn in Rouen or in some other place where I can find striking motifs.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

Quote of Pissarro, from Osny, February 1884, in a letter to his son Lucien; in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 61
1880's

Search , Autumn

“I will be satisfied if my epitaph shall be written thus: "Here lies one who never rose to any eminence, who only courted the low ambition to have it said that he striven to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the lowly, the downtrodden of every race and language and color."”

Thaddeus Stevens (1792–1868) American politician

Speech (13 January 1865), as quoted in History of the Antislavery Measures of the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Congress (1865) by Henry Wilson, p. 388
1860s

Color

“…you both fail to understand what is happening to you. You cannot see or hear or smell the truth of what you see — and you, looking for destiny! It’s classic! And the boy, this automaton, he was made of the very mud of the region and sees far less than you. Poor stumblers, neither of you can see the other. To you he is a mark on the score-card of your achievement, a thing and not a man; a child, or even less — a black, amorphous thing. And you, for all your power, are not a man to him, but a God, a force…”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 3.

God , Truth , Boy , Understanding

“Muslim politicians do not recognize secular categories of life as the basis of their politics because to them it means the weakening of the community in its fight against the Hindus. The poor Muslims will not join the poor Hindus to get justice from the rich. Muslim tenants will not join Hindu tenants to prevent the tyranny of the landlord. Muslim labourers will not join Hindu labourers in the fight of labour against the capitalist. Why? The answer is simple. The poor Muslim sees that if he joins in the fight of the poor aginst the rich, he may be fighting against a rich Muslim. The Muslim labourer feels that if he joins in the onslaught of labour against capitalist he will be injuring a Muslim mill-owner. He is conscious that any injury to a rich Muslim, to a Muslim landlord or to a Muslim mill-owner, is a disservice to the Muslim community, for it is thereby weakened in its struggle against the Hindu community.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Source: Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946), p. 236

Life , Justice , Feeling , Communication

“They knew that many centuries ago God had left his throne and had been born a babe into this poor world—that he had suffered death for the sake of man—for the sake of saving a few. They also knew that the human heart was utterly depraved, so that man by nature was in love with wrong and hated God with all his might. At the same time they knew that God created man in his own image and was perfectly satisfied with his work.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Why I Am an Agnostic (1896)

Love , Death , God , Hate

“The problem with guys like Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary of George W. Bush, is that he’s drunk the inside-the-beltway political Kookaid for so long that he actually believes his own spin. Poor guy went down for the third time in the denial goo long ago. Donald Trump’s biggest critics all believe that the engine of all things good and serious emanates from the professional Fedzillacrats who apparently enjoy wallowing in the said goo of Washington, D. C. … Donald Trump is a mess? Maybe Mr. Fleischer should open up the political garbage can he and the majority of Fedzillacrats live in and take a look at the real, certifiable, rotting, stinking mess that has been caused by the professional scammers of both political stripes for the past 50 years. … If you want to watch a real political train wreck, witness a real mess in progress, you need look no further than the professional politicians who have borrowed and spent this country into oblivion. Trump that if you dare.”

Ted Nugent (1948) American rock musician

Give Trump the Medal of Freedom (August 7, 2015)

Guy , Problem , Time , Past

“If you'd asked me as a kid how rich people became poor, I'd have said by spending all their money. That's how it happens in books and movies, because that's the colorful way to do it. But in fact the way most fortunes are lost is not through excessive expenditure, but through bad investments.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"How To Lose Time And Money", July 2010

Money , People , Books , Color

“The growers in Delano have their spiritual problems… we do not deny that. They have every right to have priests and ministers who serve their needs. But we have different needs, and so we needed a friendly spiritual guide. And this is true in every community in this state where the poor face tremendous problems. But the opposition raises a tremendous howl about this. They don't want us to have our spiritual advisors, friendly to our needs. Why is this? Why indeed except that there is tremendous spiritual and economic power in the church. The rich know it, and for that reason they choose to keep it from the people.”

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

The Mexican-American and the Church (1968)

People , Communication , Problem

“The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.”

John Stuart Mill book Principles of Political Economy

Principles of Political Economy (1848), Book IV, Chapter VI, §2

Fear , Nature , Effort

“Written by a nice reporter. Now the poor guy - you ought to see the guy: ‘Uhh I don’t know what I said. I don’t remember!’ He’s going, ‘I don’t remember! Maybe that’s what I said.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

As quoted in "Trump mocks reporter with disability" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX9reO3QnUA&t=15 (25 November 2015 by CNN) and "Donald Trump accused of mocking disabled reporter" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12019097/Donald-Trump-accused-of-mocking-disabled-reporter.html (26 November 2015), by Rob Crilly regarding Serge Kovaleski
2010s, 2015

Guy

“By default, we have created a "system" of nursing-home care for the aged in which middle-class people pay exorbitant rates to for-profit nursing-home entrepreneurs - and then when private resources are consumed and the patient qualifies as a pauper, the nursing home begins billing Medicaid. This is precisely the antithesis of social citizenship; instead of the poor being accorded the dignity associated with the middle class, equality of treatment is achieved by making the middle class undergo pauperization.”

Robert Kuttner (1943) American journalist

Source: The Economic Illusion (1984), Chapter 6, Welfare, p. 239

People , Age , Home

“My dad has hated me for as long as I can remember. That's a pretty sweeping statement, and I know how phony it sounds. It sounds petulant and really fantastic, the kind of weapon kids always use when the old man won't come across with the car for your heavy date at the drive-in with Peggy Sue or when he tells you that if you flunk world history the second time through he's going to beat the living hell out of you. In this day and age when everybody thinks psychology is God's gift to the poor old anally fixated human race and even the president of the United States pops a trank before dinner, it's really a good way to get rid of those Old Testament guilts that keep creeping up our throats like the aftertaste of a bad meal we overate. If you say your father hated you as a kid, you can go out and flash the neighborhood, commit rape, or burn down the Knights of Pythias bingo parlor and still cop a plea… But it also means that no one will believe you if it's true. You're the little boy who cried wolf. And for me it's true…I don't think Dad himself really knew it until then. Even if you could dig to the very bottom of his motives, he'd probably say - at the most - that he was hating me for my own good.”

Stephen King book Rage

Rage (1977)

God , Hate , Age , World

“Rich people didn’t get in that kind of mess. They never had. Only the poor got trapped: by ignorance, by religion, by self-righteous laws passed by people who broke them with impunity.”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 3 (p. 32)

People , Religion , Law

“Take your fill when the cask is first opened and when it is nearly spent, but midways be sparing: it is poor saving when you come to the lees.”

Hesiod book Works and Days

Variant translation: At the beginning of the cask and at the end take thy fill, but be saving in the middle; for at the bottom saving comes too late.
Source: Works and Days (c. 700 BC), line 368 (translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White).

“One tortured soul I know who suffers from amazingly premature ejaculation -- I mean so premature that he hasn't got any children after eleven years of marriage -- was told by the priest that it was probably a blessing in disguise. What a piece of advice to give to a poor sod who comes off at the sound of his wife's car in the drive.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor

Marriage , Children , Cars , Soul

“Are there no Moravians in the Moon, that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet of ours, to civilize civilisation and christianize Christendom?”

Herman Melville book White-Jacket

This has often been quoted with modernized American spelling, rendering it "to civilize civilization and christianize Christendom?"
Source: White-Jacket (1850), Ch. 64

“But they say, "It is not so much the Dreadnoughts we object to, it is pensions". If they objected to pensions, why did they promise them? They won elections on the strength of their promises. It is true they never carried them out. Deception is always a pretty contemptible vice, but to deceive the poor is the meanest of all.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Limehouse, East London (30 July 1909), quoted in Better Times: Speeches by the Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), p. 145.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

“The media talks about home grown terrorism but Islamic radicalism and that's a very, very important term — a term that the president refuses to use and the networks that nurture it are imports from overseas whether you like it or whether you don't like it. Yes, there are many radicalized people already inside our country as a result of poor policies of the past.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

People , Home , Past , Country

“With six meats and twelve wines or else without
To walk another room…Monsieur and comrade,
The soldier is poor without the poet’s lines.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Give Pleasure

Wine

“We form at La Faucille now a little colony where concord and happiness reign, and have not even for enemies the bears of the country... We are situated in a very movable manner, however, on one of the mountains of the Jura, where the inn is the most remarkable building. For I must tell you that we enjoy the company of an unaccountable old man of sixty, who resembles poor Father Colombert as if it were he himself. He is of the ancient nobility. He held the grade of General under the Restoration, having had possessions, which he has lost by the changes. He consoles himself now by carrying all his fortune. With him, a much rarer lot it consists in good humour and strength and philosophy. I have never seen a more excellent man. He is here to search for plants and stones.”

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) French painter (1812-1867)

Quote in a letter to Rousseau's mother, from the Jura, 17th August, 1834; as cited in The Barbizon School of Painters: Corot, Rousseau, Diaz, Millet, Daubigny, etc. , by D. C. Thomson; Scribner and Welford, New York 1890 – (copy nr. 78), pp. 111-112
1830 - 1850

Search , Mountain , Change , Country

“We spent Friday evening with our friends at the boarding-house, and our curiosity was gratified by the sight of their fellow-inmates, Mrs. Drew and Miss Hook, Mr. Wynne and Mr. Fitzhugh; the latter is brother to Mrs. Lance, and very much the gentleman. He has lived in that house more than twenty years, and poor man, is so totally deaf that they say he could not hear a cannon, were it fired close to him; having no cannon at hand to make the experiment, I took it for granted, and talked to him a little with my fingers, which was funny enough.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter (1808-12-27) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Housing

“I'm going to Graceland, Graceland,
Memphis, Tennessee,
Well, I'm going to Graceland.
Poor boys and pilgrims with families
And we are going to Graceland,
And my travelling companion is nine years old,
He is the child of my first marriage,
But I've reason to believe
We both will be received in Graceland.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Graceland
Song lyrics, Graceland (1986)

Marriage , Family , Travel , Boy

“My dear Father, Charley wrote you in his letter to his Aunt Laura thanking you for your kindness in sending us a nice Christmas present. You must not think because I have not written you myself before this that I appreciated your kindness less. I have been so troubled with pains and weakness in my arm and hand as to be almost useless at times. I think it was nursing so much when the children were sick. I was so relieved when Anna's note to Charly arrived yesterday telling Frankie was better. It would have been dreadful for Mother to have gone out west at this miserable season of the year. I was wretchedly uneasy. I do hope poor Franky will get along nicely now. It will make him much more careful about exposing himself having had this severe attack. Charley received the enclosed letters Anna sent from Sister Eliza and Toad[? ]. I was very glad to get them. It is quite refreshing to read Sister Eliza's letters. They are so cheerful and happy. I had a letter from her on Friday. This Custom House investigating committee is attracting a great deal of attention and time here. It holds its sessions at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Mr. Broome was up on Tuesday evening until ten o'clock but was not called upon. It is very slow. He has been for three weeks passed preparing the statement for those summoned from the Public Stores. Mr. Broome sends Laura a paper to look at—The Fisk tragedy. What is Nora doing with herself this winter. She might write to me sometimes. Give much love to Mother. Ask her for her receipt for getting fat. I would like to gain some myself. It is so much nicer to grow fleshy as you advance in life than to shrivel and dry up. The children are all well and growing very fast. Lloyd has to study very hard this year. His studies are quite difficult. I suppose Charley Harris is working hard too. Mr. Broome sent you a paper with the Navy Register in this week. I received your papers and often Richard calls and gets them. I must close. Mr. Broome and children join me in love to you, Mother, Laura, Anna, Nora, Charly & all.
With much love,
Your devoted child, Mary Jane
I enclose Nancy letter which was written some time ago.”

Charles Boarman (1795–1879) US Navy Rear Admiral

Mary Jane Boarman in a Sunday letter to her father (January 21, 1872)
The people mentioned in Mary Jane's letter were her children Lloyd, Charley, and Nancy; her husband, William Henry Broome; her sisters Eliza, Anna, Laura, and Nora; her brother Frankie; and her nephew frontier physician Dr. Charles "Charley" Harris, son of her sister Susan.
John Broome and Rebecca Lloyd: Their Descendants and Related Families, 18th to 21st Centuries (2009)

Love , Life , Pain , Children

“A man, in so far as he is an individual, may be very sharply detached from others, a sort of spiritual crustacean, and yet be very poor in differentiating content. And further, it is true on the other hand that the more personality a man has and the greater his interior riches and the more he is a society within himself, the less brusquely he is divided from his fellows.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VIII : From God to God

Personality

“As in a game ov cards, so in the game ov life, we must play what is dealt tew us, and the glory consists, not so mutch in winning, as in playing a poor hand well.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things https://archive.org/details/joshbillingsoni00billgoog (1868), Chapter XXIV: "Perkussion Caps", p. 89; republished in The Complete Works of Josh Billings http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36556 (1876), Chapter 141: "Ods and Ens", p. 248. Often paraphrased as "Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well."

Life , Game

“What has the church done? It made the wife a slave—the property of the husband, and it placed the husband as much above the wife as Christ was above the husband. It taught that a nun is purer, nobler than a mother. It induced millions of pure and conscientious girls to renounce the joys of life—to take the veil woven of night and death, to wear the habiliments of the dead—made them believe that they were the brides of Christ. For my part, I would as soon be a widow as the bride of a man who had been dead for eighteen hundred years. The poor deluded girls imagined that they, in some mysterious way, were in spiritual wedlock united with God. All worldly desires were driven from their hearts. They filled their lives with fastings—with prayers—with self-accusings. They forgot fathers and mothers and gave their love to the invisible. They were the victims, the convicts of superstition—prisoners in the penitentiaries of God. Conscientious, good, sincere—insane. These loving women gave their hearts to a phantom, their lives to a dream.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

A Thanksgiving Sermon (1897)

Love , Life , Death , Women

“Seek, therefore, thyself! But in finding oneself, does not one find one's own nothingness?… Carlyle answers (Past and Present, book iii, chap. xi.). "The latest Gospel in the world is, Know thy work and do it. Know thyself: long enough has that poor self of thine tormented thee; thou wilt never get to know it, I believe! Think it thy business, this of knowing thyself; thou art an unknowable individual: know what thou canst work at; and work at it, like Hercules. That will be thine better plan." …and what is my work? — without thinking about myself, is to love God…. And on the other hand, in loving God in myself, am I not loving myself more than God, am I not loving myself in God?”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis

Love , God , Books , World

“.. everything has conspired to keep from me the leisure and quiet which I could wish in order to answer you. I have also made two journeys to Paris, the last one to attend the funeral of poor Emile Diaz [son of the Barbizon-painter Narcisse Virgilio Díaz, ] of whom you ask news. His poor father was almost mad with grief, which, however, we managed to calm. You were as if present, and our thoughts associated you with the sad scene. During the return my wife was taken ill, and day by day a neuralgic attack came on which has left her very feeble. I do not know what to do, my dear friend. At the commencement I had thought of leaving her at Martigues, but now her mental condition would not permit of my leaving her. She would be afraid of being ill without me there beside her. I think I had better wait until the result of this last attack shall have left her.”

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) French painter (1812-1867)

Quote from Rousseau's letter to Ziem, 1856; as cited in The Barbizon School of Painters: Corot, Rousseau, Diaz, Millet, Daubigny, etc., by D. C. Thomson; Scribner and Welford, New York 1890 – (copy nr. 78), pp. 135-136
The quiet life at Barbizon was at this time broken by the death of the only son of Díaz, and by the mental distortion of Rousseau's own wife
1851 - 1867

Sadness , Thinking , Waiting , Madness

“It's outrageous to line your pockets off the misery of the poor.
Outrageous, the crimes some human beings must endure.
It's a blessing to wash your face in the summer solstice rain.
It's outrageous a man like me stand here and complain.
But I'm tired.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Outrageous
Song lyrics, Surprise (2006)

Summer

“It thus became vital to the peace of the planters' minds that the frustrations of the "crackers," "sandhillers," or "poor white trash" be diminished or placated at all costs. This involved, first and foremost, keeping the bogeyman of race ever before the nonslaveholders' eyes, for whatever hatreds the poor whites nursed against the planters, they nursed still greater ones against blacks.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

Source: 2010s, Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (2012), Chapter One

Peace

“If you’re born poor, you will die on average nine years earlier than others. If you’re black, you’re treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than if you’re white. If you’re a white, working-class boy, you’re less likely than anybody else to go to university. If you’re at a state school, you’re less likely to reach the top professions than if you’re educated privately. If you’re a woman, you still earn less than a man. If you suffer from mental health problems, there’s too often not enough help to hand. If you’re young, you’ll find it harder than ever before to own your own home. These are all burning injustices, and – as I did with the misuse of stop and search and deaths in police custody and modern slavery – I am determined to fight against them.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech declaring bid for the Conservative Party leadership http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-mays-tory-leadership-launch-statement-full-text-a7111026.html (30 June 2016)

Death , Health , Education , School

“The gods of all pagan faiths have been allied with the rich rulers. The priests of most religions are the employees of the landowners. But the God of Israel has always claimed to be with the poor—whether in the legislation of Deuteronomy, the words of the prophets, or the experiences of the New Testament. Our God is on the side of the poor.”

John Howard Yoder (1927–1997) 20th century American Mennonite theologian

Source: Radical Christian Discipleship (2012), p. 41

God , Faith , Religion

“Fifteen years ago, when the Cold War ended, many of us hoped for a new world order to emerge. A world order rooted in human solidarity — a world order that would be equitable, inclusive and effective.
But today we are nowhere near that goal. We may have torn down the walls between East and West, but we have yet to build the bridges between North and South — the rich and the poor.”

Mohamed ElBaradei (1942) Egyptian law scholar and diplomat, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Nobel …

Nobel lecture (2005)

War , World , Hope

“People back home call me a heckler, a troublemaker, an irritant, a rebel, an activist, the voice of the people. But that wasn't always me. Growing up, I had a nickname. They used to call me Softy, meaning the soft, harmless boy. Like every other human being, I avoided trouble. In my childhood, they taught me silence. Don't argue, do as you're told. In Sunday school, they taught me don't confront, don't argue, even if you're right, turn the other cheek. This was reinforced by the political climate of the time. Kenya is a country where you are guilty until proven rich. Kenya's poor are five times more likely to be shot dead by the police who are meant to protect them than by criminals. This was reinforced by the political climate of the day.”

Boniface Mwangi (1983) Kenyan photojournalist

The day I stood up alone

People , School , Home , Boy

“And the music came back with the carnival, the music you've heard as far back as you can remember, ever since you were little, that's always playing somewhere, in some corner of the city, in little country towns, wherever poor people go and sit at the end of the week to figure out what's become of them, sometimes here, sometimes there, from season to season, it tinkles and grinds out the tunes that rich people danced to the year before. It's the mechanical music that floats down from the wooden horses, from the cars that aren't cars anymore, from the railways that aren't at all scenic, from the platform under the wrestler who hasn't any muscles and doesn't come from Marseille, from the beardless lady, the magician who's a butter-fingered jerk, the organ that's not made of gold, the shooting gallery with the empty eggs. It's the carnival made to delude the weekend crowd. We go in and drink the beer with no head on it. But under the cardboard trees the stink of the waiter's breath is real. And the change he gives you has several peculiar coins in it, so peculiar that you go on examining them for weeks and weeks and finally, with considerable difficulty, palm them off on some beggar. What do you expect at the carnival? Gotta have what fun you can between hunger and jail, and take things as they come. No sense complaining, we're sitting down aren't we? Which ain't to be sneezed at. I saw the same old Gallery of the Nations, the one Lola caught sight of years and years ago on that avenue in the park of Saint-Cloud. You always see things again at carnivals, they revive the joy of past carnivals. Over the years the crowds must have come back time and again to stroll on the main avenue of the park of Saint-Cloud…taking it easy. The war had been over long ago. And say I wonder if that shooting gallery still belonged to the same owner? Had he come back alive from the war? I take an interest in everything. Those are the same targets, but in addition, they're shooting at airplanes now. Novelty. Progress. Fashion. The wedding was still there, the soldier too, and the town hall with its flag. Plus a few more things to shoot at than before.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

27
Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Hunger , War , People , Music

“Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia
Tidewater four ten o nine
Tell the folks back home this is the promised land callin'
And the poor boy's on the line”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Promised Land" (1964)
Song lyrics

Angels , Home , Boy

“Although many laws perpetuate advantages gained by antecendent violence and apply unequally to rich and poor, and although most are outwardly prohibitive and therefore negative, they rest on the positive basis of the will of most men to live peacefully together.”

Giovanni Baldelli (1914–1986) Anarchist theorist

Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 14

Men , Law

“Bishop Köyu said (it seems to me very admirably), 'It is only a person of poor understanding who wishes to arrange things in complete sets. It is incompleteness that is desirable.' In everything regularity is bad. To leave a thing unfinished gives interest, and makes for lengthened life. They say that even in building the [imperial] palace an unfinished place is always left. In the writings of the ancients, inner and outer [Buddhist and non-Buddhist], there are many missing chapters and parts.”

Yoshida Kenkō (1283–1350) japanese writer

Tsurezure-Gusa (Essays in Idleness)

Life , Understanding , Parting , Personality

“It's funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is, that people are lining up for food. That is a good thing! In other countries people don't line up for food: the rich get the food and the poor starve to death.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

As quoted in "When Bernie Sanders Thought Castro and the Sandinistas Could Teach America a Lesson" http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/28/when-bernie-sanders-thought-castro-and-the-sandinistas-could-teach-america-a-lesson.html by Michael Moynihan, The Daily Beast (28 February 2016)
1980s

Death , People , Food , Country

“With respect to teachers' salaries …. Poor teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far more by seniority.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 6 The Role of Government in Education, p. 95

Teachers

“How easily we Indians see the several sides to every question! That is what makes us such good bureaucrats, and such poor totalitarians. They say the new international organizations set up by the wonderfully optimistic (if oxymoronic) United Nations are full of highly successful Indian officials with quick, subtle minds and mellifluous tongues, for ever able to understand every global crisis from the point of view of each and every one of the contending parties. That is why they do so well, Ganapathi, in any situation that calls for an instinctive awareness of the subjectivity of truth, the relativity of judgement and the impossibility of action.”

Shashi Tharoor book The Great Indian Novel

The Great Indian Novel (1989)

Truth , Understanding , Question , Success

“When a man paints a naked woman he gives her less than poor Nature did. I can conceive of few circumstances wherein I would have to paint a woman naked, but if I did I would not mutilate her for double the money. She is the most beautiful thing there is — except a naked man, but I never saw a study of one exhibited.”

Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) American painter

Letter to his father, Benjamin Eakins (1867), quoted in Lloyd Goodrich, Thomas Eakins: His Life and Work (1933).

Money , Beauty , Nature , Study

“Can you be happy with the movies, and the ads, and the clothes in the stores, and the doctors, and the eyes as you walk down the street all telling you there is something wrong with you? No. You cannot be happy. Because, you poor darling baby, you believe them.”

Katherine Dunn book Geek Love

Geek Love (1989)

Baby , Clothes , Happiness

“It is said that the children of the very poor are not brought up, but dragged up.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 6

Children

“For the poor children who are hungry. For the rich children who are sad.”

Carlos Menem (1930) Argentine politician who was President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999

Children , Sadness

“I look upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of the progress. We know of so many cases where men have adopted trusteeship, but none where the State has really lived for the poor.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Modern Review (October, 1935) p. 412. Interview with Nirmal Kumar Bose (9/10 November 1934)
1930s

Men , Fear

“Here is another example of violating one's nature in the name of nobility, an example that shows the larger dangers of false love. Years ago, I heard Dorothy Day speak. Founder of the Catholic Worker movement, her long-term commitment to living among the poor on New York's Lower East Side—not just serving them but sharing their condition—had made her one of my heroes. So it came as a great shock. when in the middle of her talk, I heard her start to ruminate about the "ungrateful poor."
I did not understand how such a dismissive phrase could come from the lips of a saint—until it hit me with the force of a Zen koan. Dorothy Day was saying, "Do not give to the poor expecting to get their gratitude so that you can feel good about yourself. If you do, your giving will be thin and short-lived, and that is not what the poor need; it will only impoverish them further. Give only if you have something you must give; give only if you are someone for whom giving is its own reward."”

Parker Palmer (1939) American theologian

Source: Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (1999), pp. 48-49

Love , Feeling , Understanding , Nature

“I know of nothing more terrible than the poor creatures who have learned too much. Instead of the sound powerful judgement which would probably have grown up if they had learned nothing, their thoughts creep timidly and hypnotically after words, principles and formulae, constantly by the same paths. What they have acquired is a spider's web of thoughts too weak to furnish sure supports, but complicated enough to provide confusion.”

Ernst Mach (1838–1916) Austrian physicist and university educator

"On the Relative Educational Value of the Classics and the Mathematico-Physical Sciences in Colleges and High Schools", an address in (16 April 1886), published in Popular Scientific Lectures (1898), as translated by Thomas J. McCormack, p. 367
19th century

Support , Learning

“I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust Office at Madras… I have no University education but I have undergone the ordinary school course. After leaving school I have been employing the spare time at my disposal to work at Mathematics. I have not trodden through the conventional regular course which is followed in a University course, but I am striking out a new path for myself. I have made a special investigation of divergent series in general and the results I get are termed by the local mathematicians as "startling"…. Very recently I came across a tract published by you styled Orders of Infinity in page 36 of which I find a statement that no definite expression has been as yet found for the number of prime numbers less than any given number. I have found an expression which very nearly approximates to the real result, the error being negligible. I would request that you go through the enclosed papers. Being poor, if you are convinced that there is anything of value I would like to have my theorems published. I have not given the actual investigations nor the expressons that I get but I have indicated the lines on which I proceed. Being inexperienced I would very highly value any advice you give me. Requesting to be excused for the trouble I give you. I remain, Dear Sir, Yours truly…”

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920) Indian mathematician

Letter to G. H. Hardy, (16 January 1913), published in Ramanujan: Letters and Commentary American Mathematical Society (1995) History of Mathematics, Vol. 9

Education , School , Error , Mathematics

“Time stands still for man and woman alike, it is a good moment, because Time usually makes everything worse, poor people grow old, rich people can buy a little time but they can'hold it up for good, it always catches up with them. In the last analysis, Time is democratic.”

Elfriede Jelinek book Wonderful, Wonderful Times

123
Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

People , Time

“I have just this moment heard from the front — there is nothing yet of a movement, but each side is continually on the alert, expecting something to happen.
O Mother, to think that we are to have here soon what I have seen so many times, the awful loads and trains and boatloads of poor, bloody, and pale and wounded young men again — for that is what we certainly will, and before very long. I see all the little signs, getting ready in the hospitals, etc.; it is dreadful when one thinks about it. I sometimes think over the sights I have myself seen: the arrival of the wounded after a battle, and the scenes on the field, too, and I can hardly believe my own recollections. What an awful thing war is! Mother, it seems not men but a lot of devils and butchers butchering each other.”

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

Letter to his mother (22 March 1864)

Men , War , Thinking , Time

“who'll save the poor little girl?
oh, Henry…
who'll tell the story of her?
Henry Darger”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, Motherland (2001), Henry Darger

Girl

“Four spectres haunt the Poor — Old Age, Accident, Sickness and Unemployment. We are going to exorcise them. We are going to drive hunger from the hearth. We mean to banish the workhouse from the horizon of every workman in the land.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Reading (1 January 1910)
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Hunger , Age

“The transcript lay there, waiting for him as he hung up the telephone. Waiting for him to open it again. Trent Interview. Subject: Dorrant. Jason Dorrant. Poor kid, but at least he was young, free, not caught and fixed in time, as if frozen in ambers. Like so many others. Like me. You are what you do, Lottie had said. But now I don't do anything.”

Robert Cormier book The Rag and Bone Shop

Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 149

Time , Waiting

“The advantages of general independence are too obvious for dispute; but it may be regretted that the rich and poor now-a-days live so far apart : they have no amusements in common, and it is the cheerful hours of life past together that most knit the social ties. The hunt in his forest, and the Christmas by his hearth, drew the baron and his people together, each in their most lightsome mood — the gain was mutual.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Literary Remains

Life , People , Mood , Past

“I ask you, what am I? I’m one of the undeserving poor: thats what I am. Think of what that means to a man.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Act II
1910s, Pygmalion (1912)

Thinking

“Going into the House last night, the caution lately given me by a poor but honest Scotchman struck me. He said to me, "Mr. Bright, I'll give you a piece of advice. You are going into bad company; and now that you are in, remember that you stick to what you said when you were out." If one had dropped from the clouds upon the floor of the House and listened to the debate last night, I never should have dreamed that there was the least distress or discontent in the country. It was true that Lord John Russell made a very clever speech and some hard hits at the ministry… Then came Lord Palmerston, and he made a very clever speech, if there was no country; it would have been very well at a debating club; it had some hard cuts at the ministry, interspersed with references to Afghanistan and the Ameers of Scinde, and everything but the condition of England question.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech at an Anti-Corn Law League banquet (29 July 1843), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 116-117.
1840s

Dreams , Question , Housing , Night

“At Christmas be merry and thankful withal,
And feast thy poor neighbors, the great with the small.”

Thomas Tusser (1524–1580) English poet

"December Husbandry".
A Hundred Points of Good Husbandry (1557)

Christmas