Poverty

"The fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration, — a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy existence, — and for some time he lay gasping on a little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and the next: the balance being decidedly in favor of the latter. Now, if, during this brief period, Oliver had been surrounded by careful grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been killed in no time."

"'Please, sir, I want some more.'"

"Oliver Twist has asked for more!"

"'Come,' said Mr. Bumble, somewhat less pompously, for it was gratifying to his feelings to observe the effect his eloquence had produced; 'Come, Oliver! Wipe your eyes with the cuffs of your jacket, and don't cry into your gruel; that's a very foolish action, Oliver.'"

"'Let him alone!' said Noah. 'Why everybody lets him alone enough, for the matter of that. Neither his father nor his mother will ever interfere with him. All his relations let him have his own way pretty well. Eh, Charlotte? He! he! he!'"

"It was a nice sickly season just at this time. In commercial phrase, coffins were looking up."

"'A regular right-down bad 'un, Work'us,' replied Noah, coolly. 'And it's a great deal better, Work'us, that she died when she did, or else she'd have been hard labouring in Bridewell, or transported, or hung; which is more likely than either, isn't it?'"

"Noah writhed and twisted his body into an extensive variety of eel-like positions; thereby giving Mr. Bumble to understand that, from the violent and sanguinary onset of Oliver Twist, he had sustained severe internal injury and damage, from which he was at that moment suffering the acutest torture."

"'I am very hungry and tired,' replied Oliver: the tears standing in his eyes as he spoke. 'I have walked a long way. I have been walking these seven days.'"

"What a fine thing capital punishment is! Dead men never repent; dead men never bring awkward stories to light. Ah! it's a fine thing for the trade! Five of them strung up in a row, and none left to play booty or turn white-livered!"

"'What's that?' said the Jew. 'What do you watch me for? Why are you awake? What have you seen? Speak out, boy! Quick--quick! for your life."

"Although Oliver had been brought up by philosophers, he was not theoretically acquainted with the beautiful axiom that self-preservation is the first law of nature."

"There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast."

"I only know two sorts of boys. Mealy boys, and beef-faced boys."

"By what, or by whom, nobody knows, for the clerk and jailor coughed very loud, just at the right moment; and the former dropped a heavy book upon the floor, thus preventing the word from being heard--accidently, of course."

"'Fair, or not fair,' retorted Sikes, 'hand over, I tell you! Do you think Nancy and me has got nothing else to do with our precious time but to spend it in scouting arter, and kidnapping, every young boy as gets grabbed through you? Give it here, you avaricious old skeleton, give it here!'"

"The mud lay thick upon the stones, and a black mist hung over the streets; the rain fell sluggishly down, and everything felt cold and clammy to the touch. It seemed just the night when it befitted such a being as the Jew to be abroad. As he glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved: crawling forth, by night, in search of some rich offal for a meal."

"But death, fires, and burglary, make all men equals..."

"It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper," said Mr. Bumble. "So cry away."

"Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine."

"If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, "the law is a ass — a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience."

"The destitute is the Messenger of God. Whoever denies him denies God and whoever gives him gives God."

"BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given."

"BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends."

"Homer himself must beg if he want means, and as by report sometimes he did "go from door to door and sing ballads, with a company of boys about him.""

"Set a beggar on horseback, and he will ride a gallop."

"Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn."

"It is an affirmative command to give tzedaka to the poor of Israel. ... Anyone who sees a poor man begging alms and turns away his glance from him and does not give him tzedaka transgresses a negative command, as it is said, "You shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand to your needy brother" (Deuteronomy 15:7)."

"Be they wynners or loosers,…beggers should be no choosers."

"A shamefaced man makes a bad beggar."

"A man may be reputed an able man this year, and yet be a beggar the next; it is a misfortune that happens to many men, and his former reputation will signify nothing."

"Beggars are a sure indicator that there are no Christians, or else very few and dispirited ones, in any town in which beggars are seen."

"He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, "To get practice in being refused.""

"Borgen ist nicht viel besser als betteln."

"Der wahre Bettler ist Doch einzig und allein der wahre König."

"My eye no longer wells up at the shame of those who beg; my hand became too hard for the trembling of filled hands. Where have the tears of my eye and the down of my heart gone? Oh loneliness of all bestowers! Oh muteness of all who shine! Many suns revolve in desolate space. To everything that is dark they speak with their light – to me they are mute. Oh this is the enmity of light toward that which shines; mercilessly it goes its orbit. Unjust in its deepest heart toward that which shines: cold toward suns – thus every sun goes. Like a storm the suns fly their orbit, that is their motion. They follow their inexorable will; that is their coldness. Oh it is you only, you dark ones, you nocturnal ones, who create warmth out of that which shines! Oh it is you only who drink milk and refreshment from the udders of light! Alas, ice surrounds me, my hand burns itself on iciness! Alas, there is thirst in me that yearns for your thirst!"

"Do not oppress the orphans and do not reject the beggars."

"The Gods have not ordained hunger to be our death: even to the well-fed man comes death in varied shape, The riches of the liberal never waste away, while he who will not give finds none to comfort him, The man with food in store who, when the needy comes in miserable case begging for bread to eat, Hardens his heart against him, when of old finds not one to comfort him. Bounteous is he who gives unto the beggar who comes to him in want of food, and the feeble, Success attends him in the shout of battle. He makes a friend of him in future troubles, No friend is he who to his friend and comrade who comes imploring food, will offer nothing. Let the rich satisfy the poor implorer, and bend his eye upon a longer pathway, Riches come now to one, now to another, and like the wheels of cars are ever rolling, The foolish man wins food with fruitless labour: that food – I speak the truth – shall be his ruin, He feeds no trusty friend, no man to love him. All guilt is he who eats with no partaker."

"Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks."

"Unless the old adage must be verified, That beggars mounted, run their horse to death."

"Well, whiles I am a beggar I will rail And say, there is no sin but to be rich; And being rich, my virtue then shall be To say, there is no vice but beggary."

"I see, Sir, you are liberal in offers: You taught me first to beg; and now, methinks, You teach me how a beggar should be answer'd."

"I'd just as soon be a beggar as king, And the reason I'll tell you for why; A king cannot swagger, nor drink like a beggar, Nor be half so happy as I. * * * * * Let the back and side go bare."

"Set a beggar on horse backe, they saie, and hee will neuer alight."

"To get thine ends, lay bashfulnesse aside; Who feares to aske, doth teach to be deny'd."

"Mieux vaut goujat debout qu'empereur enterré."

"A beggar through the world am I, From place to place I wander by. Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me, For Christ's sweet sake and charity."

"A pampered menial drove me from the door."

"It is better for any of you to carry a load of firewood on his own back than to beg from someone else."

"Qui timide rogat, Docet negare."

"The destitute is the Messenger of God. Whoever denies him denies God and whoever gives him gives God."

"Even before Covid-19, we squandered a decade in the fight against poverty, with misplaced triumphalism blocking the very reforms that could have prevented the worst impacts of the pandemic."

"The international community . . . allows nearly 3 billion people—almost half of all humanity—to subsist on $2 or less a day in a world of unprecedented wealth."

"One would have thought that it was even more necessary to limit population than property; and that the limit should be fixed by calculating the chances of mortality in the children, and of sterility in married persons. The neglect of this subject, which in existing states is so common, is a never-failing cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is the parent of revolution and crime."

"Give then to the poor; I beg, I advise, I charge, I command you."

"But let us realize what sort of rich people. Here comes heaven knows who across our path, wrapped in rags, and he has been jumping for joy and laughing on hearing it said that the rich man can’t enter the kingdom of heaven; and he’s been saying, “I, though, will enter; that’s what theses rags will earn me; those who treat s badly and insult us, those who bear down hard upon us won’t enter; no, that sort certainly won’t enter. But just a minute, Mr. Poor Man; consider whether you can, in fact, enter. What if you’re poor, and also happen to be greedy? What if you’re sunk in destitution, and at the same time on fire with avarice? So if that’s what you’re like, whoever you are that are poor, it’s not because you haven’t wanted to be rich, but because you haven’t been able to. So God doesn’t inspect your means, but he observes your will. So if that’s what you’re like, leading a bad life, of bad morals, a blasphemer, an adulterer, a drunkard, proud, cross yourself off the list of God’s poor; you won’t be among those of whom it is said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, since theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5:3)."

"In truth, poverty is an anomaly to rich people. It is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell."

"Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor."

"Why do we hear so much about crime rates and opioids and gun violence in America, but poverty kills more people than all of those things?"

"That is why despite its imperfections, the European Union can be, and indeed is, a powerful inspiration for many around the world. Because the challenges faced from one region to the other may differ in scale but they do not differ in nature. We all share the same planet. Poverty, organised crime, terrorism, climate change: these are problems that do not respect national borders. We share the same aspirations and universal values: these are progressively taking root in a growing number of countries all over the world. We share “l’irréductible humain”, the irreducible uniqueness of the human being. Beyond our nation, beyond our continent, we are all part of one mankind. Jean Monnet, ends his Memoirs with these words: “Les nations souveraines du passé ne sont plus le cadre où peuvent se résoudre les problèmes du présent. Et la communauté elle-même n’est qu’un étape vers les formes d’organisation du monde de demain.” (“The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present. And the [European] Community itself is only a stage on the way to the organised world of the future.”) This federalist and cosmopolitan vision is one of the most important contributions that the European Union can bring to a global order in the making."

"Come away; poverty's catching."

"In the affairs of this world, poverty alone is without envy."

"There was a time when people of the rich nations of the world regarded poverty as a "natural condition" for those living in the poor nations of the world. ... Today we have largely been stripped of this pseudo-innocence. We know that the poor are so poor because the rich are so rich, that the causes of poverty can be traced to deliberate decisions and deliberate economic and political policies designed to benefit the rich and powerful. We know that poverty and unemployment are not just accidents of history but deliberate, even indispensable, components of capitalism as an economic system."

"Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation."

"“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!. I have as much soul as you, and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!”"

"S’il est vrai que l’on soit pauvre par toutes les choses que l’on désire, l’ambitieux et l’avare languissent dans une extrême pauvreté."

"And those who do not clothe the naked when they have the power to do so, should they not be called the same? The bread you are holding back is for the hungry, the clothes you keep put away are for the naked, the shoes that are rotting away with disuse are for those who have none, the silver you keep buried in the earth is for the needy. You are thus guilty of injustice toward as many as you might have aided, and did not."

"The fact is, people work hard and rely on Food Stamps—or SNAP Program—to be able to feed their families. When they work full-time they still live in poverty. That's wrong in our nation. Students who are losing hope because of the difficulty of finding jobs in this tough economy. What we need to do, what is best for America, is to raise wages, create jobs, and then we will move forward. Hard-working people are trying their best, but those who hold on to capital are not sharing the wealth, and there is the problem."

"Dr. Warton complied with this proposal, to which (as his circumstances were narrow) it must be-hoped that his poverty consented rather than his will."

"There is a solitude in poverty, but a solitude which restores to each thing its value."

"La pauvreté met le crime au rabais."

"A sound anti-poverty strategy should not only aim to increase s, but also provide the poor with a variety of assets — personal, social, political and environmental to help them overcome human poverty."

"The concept of human poverty also entails the recognition of as an essential part of poverty. Measures of income-poverty are usually made at the household level and do not capture intra-household disparities. A gendered approach to human poverty would involve examining how resources such as food, education, health services, and productive assets are distributed within the household."

"The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich."

"The God who appears to me is the comforter of the poor and their avenger in world history. This avenger of the poor is the God I love."

"There is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own shortcomings, or by the shortcomings of someone else. It is all wrong to be poor, anyhow."

"How long will you a defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."

"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind then that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

"Tens of millions of Americans do not end up poor by a mistake of history or personal conduct. Poverty persists because some wish and will it to."

"Self-taught poverty is a help toward philosophy, for the things which philosophy attempts to teach by reasoning, poverty forces us to practice."

"Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself."

"The noblest people are those despising wealth, learning, pleasure and life; esteeming above them poverty, ignorance, hardship and death."

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."

"There have always been poor and working classes; and the working class have mostly been poor. But there have not always been workers and poor people living under conditions as they are today."

"Poverty is man's greatest affliction."

"The poor are styled 'God's own.'"

"There's no scandal like rags, nor any crime so shameful as poverty."

"It is not true (what some people imagine) "that the common law of England made no provision for the poor": the Mirror shews the contrary. How, indeed, it was done does not appear."

"Holy poverty … is the foundation and guardian of all virtues. ... The kingdom of heaven truly belongs to those who, of their own will, a spiritual intention, and a desire for eternal goods, possess nothing of this earth."

"When he [Jesus] chose some of the indispensable witnesses to his holy preaching and to his glorious manner of living for the salvation of the human race, he surely did not choose rich merchants but poor fishermen, to show by such esteem that you [Poverty] were to be loved by all. Finally, to reveal to everyone your goodness, magnificence, dignity and strength, how you surpass all other virtues, how nothing can be a virtue without you."

"In the Bible poverty is a scandalous condition inimical to human dignity and therefore contrary to the will of God."

"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."

"The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing."

"Throughout history, societies have suffered from two kinds of poverty: social poverty, which withholds from some people the opportunities available to others; and biological poverty, which puts the very life of individuals at risk due to lack of food and shelter. Perhaps social poverty can never be eradicated, but in many countries around the world biological poverty is a thing of the past."

"If the plaintiff could have gone away from the dangerous place without incurring the risk of losing his means of livelihood, the case might have been different; but he was obliged to be there; his poverty, not his will, consented to incur the danger."

"Poverty is no sin."

"While global real has nearly tripled since 1980, the number of people living in poverty, below $5 per day, has increased by more than 1.1 billion. Why is this? Because past a certain point, GDP growth begins to produce more negative outcomes than positive ones - more than wealth."

"Extreme poverty is not a natural condition, but an effect of dispossession, , and exploitation. It need not exist anywhere, and certainly should not exist in any just and humane society. It can and must be abolished immediately."

"Who sees not, that whosoever ministers to the poor, ministers to God? as it appears in that solemn sentence of the last day, Inasmuch as you did feed, clothe, lodge the poor, you did it unto me."

"People from all sectors of society, including business, government and community must all work together to reduce poverty at its source, by ensuring that all have access to fairly paid work, to decent public services, and to income support in times of need."

"An estimated 75 million to 80 million more people in Asia and the Pacific were pushed into extreme poverty because of disruptions in economic activity due to COVID-19 last year, according to a recent report from the Asian Development Bank. Before the pandemic, the percent of the population living in extreme poverty was expected to decrease... While there has been progress in overall school completion rates in the region, the poorest 40% of children are still st ruggling for basic education and half of the countries that reported data documented reading and numeracy scores below 50%...The pandemic has exacerbated this. Nearly half of the 463 million students globally who did not have access to online-based learning, or other educational broadcast platforms such as radio and television during school shutdowns were in the East Asia, Pacific subregions and South Asia regions."

"If those who lead you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the children of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

"For the first time in our history it is possible to conquer poverty."

"This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. I urge this Congress and all Americans to join with me in that effort."

"All Crimes are safe, but hated Poverty. This, only this, the rigid Law persues."

"When two-thirds of the world's population still go to bed hungry every night, when hundreds of millions need shoes and Warmth, medicines and nourishment to prevent them from dying years before their time, the dereliction of science to reducing the greater part of the earth's surface to radio-active shambles is worse than a crime. It is a sin against the light."

"Poverty is an abstraction, even for the poor. But the symptoms of collective impoverishment are all about us. Broken highways, bankrupt cities, collapsing bridges, failed schools, the unemployed, the underpaid and the uninsured: all suggest a collective failure of will. These shortcomings are so endemic that we no longer know how to talk about what is wrong, much less set about repairing it. And yet something is seriously amiss. Even as the US budgets tens of billions of dollars on a futile military campaign in Afghanistan, we fret nervously at the implications of any increase in public spending on social services or infrastructure."

"Capitalism, which the ex-communist countries are beginning to experience, does not set out to eliminate poverty but, as far as possible, to make it bearable, to keep it, at the lowest cost, below the threshold where it would inevitably explode and threaten the well-being of the privileged."

"Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se Quam quod ridiculos homines facit."

"Though in a state of society some must have greater luxuries and comforts than others, yet all should have the necessaries of life; and if the poor cannot exist, in vain may the rich look for happiness or prosperity. The legislature is never so well employed as when they look to the interests of those who are at a distance from them in the ranks of society. It is their duty to do so: religion calls for it; humanity calls for it; and if there are hearts who are not awake to either of those feelings, their own interests would dictate it."

"The sacred stories have among other qualities also this remarkable characteristic, that in all their simplicity they nevertheless always get everything said that ought to be said. This is also the case with the Gospel about the rich man and the poor man. Neither Lazarus’s misery nor the rich man’s luxury is elaborated and described, yet one incident is added that is worth nothing. It is told that Lazarus, full of sores, was laid at the rich man’s door, but he dogs came and licked his sores. What is this supposed to portray in the rich man? Mercilessness, or, more exactly, inhuman mercilessness. In order to illustrate mercifulness, one can use a merciful person who is placed alongside. This is the way it is done in the story of the merciful Samaritan, who by contrast illuminates the Levite and the priest. But the rich man was inhuman, and therefore the Gospel makes use of the dogs. What a contrast! Now, we shall not exaggerate say that a dog can be merciful, but in contrast to the rich man it seems as if the dogs were merciful. What is shocking is that when the human being had abandoned mercifulness, the dogs had to be merciful. But there is something else in this comparison between the rich man and the dogs. The rich man had it abundantly enough in his power to do something for Lazarus, the dogs were able to do nothing, and yet it is as if the dogs were merciful."

"Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a great revolution. … This day we are spending five hundred thousand dollars to kill every Vietcong soldier. Every time we kill one we spend about five hundred thousand dollars while we spend only fifty-three dollars a year for every person characterized as poverty-stricken in the so-called poverty program, which is not even a good skirmish against poverty."

"Few save the poor feel for the poor, The rich know not how hard It is to be of needful food And needful rest debarred."

"We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known. They have known for thousands of years that to lock a sick person into solitary confinement makes him worse. They have known for thousands of years that a poor man who is frightened of his landlord and of the police is a slave. They have known it. We know it. But do the great enlightened mass of the British people know it? No. It is our task, Ella, yours and mine, to tell them. Because the great men are too great to be bothered. They are already discovering how to colonise Venus and to irrigate the moon. That is what is important for our time. You and I are the boulder-pushers. All our lives, you and I, we’ll put all our energies, all our talents into pushing a great boulder up a mountain. The boulder is the truth that the great men know by instinct, and the mountain is the stupidity of mankind."

"Poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom."

"It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as God's will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe you—try to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as God's will yourself!"

"Real poverty comes only to those who indulge in food and drink. They have made themselves poor."

"Poverty is never dishonourable in itself, but only when it is a mark of sloth, intemperance, extravagance, or thoughtlessness. When, on the other hand, it is the handmaid of a sober, industrious, righteous, and brave man, who devotes all his powers to the service of the people, it is the sign of a lofty spirit that harbours no mean thoughts"

"Will you touch, will you mend me Christ? Won't you touch, will you heal me Christ? Will you kiss, can you cure me Christ? Won't you kiss, won't you pay me Christ?"

"Judas: Hey-hey-hey Woman your fine ointment - brand new and expensive Should have been saved for the poor Why has it been wasted? We could have raised maybe Three hundred silver pieces or more People who are hungry, people who are starving They matter more than your feet and hair"

"We are the first nation in the history of the world to go to the poor house in an automobile."

"We are the first nation to starve to death in a storehouse that's overfilled with everything we want."

"Sure must be a great consolation to the poor people who lost their stock in the late crash to know that it has fallen in the hands of Mr. Rockefeller, who will take care of it and see it has a good home and never be allowed to wander around unprotected again. There is one rule that works in every calamity. Be it pestilence, war, or famine, the rich get richer and poor get poorer. The poor even help arrange it."

"What we've been hearing from the panelists is how the global food system works right now... It's based on large multinational companies, private profits, and very low international transfers to help poor people (sometimes no transfers at all). It's based on the extreme irresponsibility of powerful countries with regard to the environment. And it's based on a radical denial of the economic rights of poor people... We've just heard from the Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many point a finger of blame at the DRC and other poor countries for their poverty. Yet we don't seem to remember, or want to remember, that starting around 1870, King Leopold of Belgium created a slave colony in the Congo that lasted for around 40 years; and then the government of Belgium ran the colony for another 50 years. In 1961, after independence of the DRC, the CIA then assassinated the DRC’s first popular leader, Patrice Lumumba, and installed a US-backed dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, for roughly the next 30 years. And in recent years, Glencore and other multinational companies suck out the DRC's cobalt without paying a level of royalties and taxes. We simply don't reflect on the real history of the DRC and other poor countries struggling to escape from poverty. Instead, we point fingers at these countries and say, “What's wrong with you? Why don't you govern yourselves properly?”"

"I had a chance to look into Paradise and I found that majority of the people was poor (6597)."

"It's simply a national acknowledgement that in any kind of priority, the needs of human beings must come first. Poverty is here and now. Hunger is here and now. Racial tension is here and now. Pollution is here and now. These are the things that scream for a response. And if we don't listen to that scream - and if we don't respond to it - we may well wind up sitting amidst our own rubble, looking for the truck that hit us - or the bomb that pulverized us. Get the license number of whatever it was that destroyed the dream. And I think we will find that the vehicle was registered in our own name."

"No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of the rich are damned."

"I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient."

"It is still her use To let the wretched man outlive his wealth, To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow An age of poverty."

"Poor and content is rich and rich enough, But riches fineless is as poor as winter To him that ever fears he shall be poor."

"Stepp'd me in poverty to the very lips."

"The world affords no law to make thee rich; Then be not poor, but break it, and take this."

"The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty."

"How can you make poverty history without understanding the history of poverty? We need to know how the poverty of the five billion of this world came about. Even more acutely, we need to know how the filthy wealth of the 500 multinationals or the 225 richest people was created. We need to know precisely how this great divide, this unbridgeable chasm, is maintained; how it reproduced itself, and how it is increasingly deepened and widened. We need to ask ourselves: What are the political, social, moral, ideological, economic and cultural mechanisms which produce, reinforce and make such a world not only possible, but seemingly acceptable?"

"Poverty is no discrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient."

"It is better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be stupid and speak lies."

"The rich is the one that rules over those of little means, and the borrower is servant to the man doing the lending."

"Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh: For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags."

"Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more."

"Whose plenty made him pore."

"His rawbone cheekes, through penurie and pine, Were shronke into his jawes, as he did never dyne."

"I also believe that in many parts of this country, and certainly in many parts of this globe, that the opposite of poverty is not wealth. I don't believe that. I actually think, in too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice."

"Wealth is far away, poverty is close at hand."

"To be broke is not a disgrace, it is only a catastrophe."

"The rise of capitalism, rather than delivering improvements in human welfare, was associated with plummeting wages, a reduction in human stature, and a marked upturn in the incidence of famine."

"The world over, private financial markets fail when it comes to the very poor, ... Mainstream banks do not seek out poor communities—because that’s not where the money is."

"If a poor person envies a rich person, he is no better than the rich person."

"Poverty can be defined objectively and applied consistently only in terms of the concept of relative deprivation."

"The term is understood objectively rather than subjectively. Individuals, families and groups in the population can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or are at least widely encouraged or approved, in the societies to which they belong. Their resources are so seriously below those commanded by the average individual or family that they are, in effect, excluded from ordinary living patterns, customs and activities."

"Counselor Deanna Troi: overty was eliminated on Earth, a long time ago. And a lot of other things disappeared with it - hopelessness, despair, cruelty..."

"Indeed the results of giving people more resources were so positive that now more than 60 mayors across the country have committed to guaranteed income as a tool to abolish poverty, with about half already running pilots in their own cities. We absolutely can implement bold policies on the local, state and federal levels that will dramatically change the trajectory of people’s lives, eliminate poverty and improve the nation’s productivity. But we can only achieve that kind of change if we disrupt and replace the current narrative on poverty based on racist, classist, sexist and xenophobic stereotypes. It’s a narrative that blames people for their struggles — labeling them as lazy, corrupt, unintelligent or worse — and deems them undeserving of our trust, our investment or even their own dignity. This framing allows politicians to ignore and maintain blatantly unjust systems that keep people trapped in poverty — like jobs that pay unlivable wages or students at poor schools not having adequate, if any, access to resources like guidance counselors and extracurricular activities that affluent schools provide."

"A narrative that blames people for not rising out of poverty also permits policymakers to look the other way as so many young people are denied access or priced out of continuing education, even when we know higher education is necessary (though not a silver bullet) for advancing in today’s economy. It’s a narrative that contributes to continual mass incarceration that breaks up families and strips talent and potential from Black and brown communities... How will we pay for these and other new policies? We can start by demanding — as most Americans do — that wealthy corporations and people finally pay their fair share in taxes."

"Paupertas sanitatis mater."

"As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them of course, but one cannot possibly admire them."

"In the Bible, poverty is not in itself something to be applauded. It is in fact a wretched condition. Rich Christians romanticize it, misinterpreting the text "blessed are the poor in spirit," as when they claim, "I wish I were poor. Their lives are so uncomplicated, more simple. The poor don't have the worries of the rich." Poverty is not an ideal state. On the contrary, it is regarded as an evil condition in the Bible, because the poor are victims of injustice and oppression. Poverty is seen not so much as an absence of possessions, but as a condition of powerlessness. So poverty is not an ideal but an evil."

"To listen to someone is to put oneself in his place while he is speaking. To put oneself in the place of someone whose soul is corroded by affliction, or in near danger of it, is to annihilate oneself. It is more difficult than suicide would be for a happy child. Therefore the afflicted are not listened to. They are like someone whose tongue has been cut out and who occasionally forgets the fact. When they move their lips no ear perceives any sound. And they themselves soon sink into impotence in the use of language, because of the certainty of not being heard."

"That is why there is no hope for the vagrant as he stands before the magistrate. Even if, through his stammerings, he should utter a cry to pierce the soul, neither the magistrate nor the public will hear it. His cry is mute. And the afflicted are nearly always equally deaf to one another; and each of them, constrained by the general indifference, strives by means of self-delusion or forgetfulness to become deaf to his own self."

"13 million children are hungry in America. Yet most politicians do not even talk about it. Children aren’t old enough to vote, nor old enough to work therefore they have no financial leverage. They’re not old enough to advocate for themselves. That’s our job. The political establishment has simply normalized the despair of millions of American children who are chronically traumatized by poverty, hunger, and all manner of violence. This is what happens when government becomes more an instrument of corporate profits then of conscience. The vulnerabilities, challenges and chronic trauma of millions of American children should be recognized as a social justice issue. An economic system with no particular use for children - or for older people - has left both groups underserved. This country shouldn’t be run like a business, it should be run like a family. First we should take care of our children & older people, making sure they have everything they need to thrive. Everything else would then heal itself from there. Moral repair precedes societal repair."

"Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below $1.90 per day – the International Poverty Line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty– has fallen by close to 800 million. With this, China has contributed close to three-quarters of the global reduction in the number of people living in extreme poverty. At China’s current national poverty line, the number of poor fell by 770 million over the same period. To take stock of this achievement, a joint study – “Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead” – was undertaken by China’s Ministry of Finance, the Development Research Center (DRC) of the State Council, and the World Bank, with the China Center for International Knowledge on Development (CIKD) acting as the implementing agency. The report looks at the key drivers of China’s poverty alleviation achievements over the past 40 years, considers the insights of China’s experience for other developing countries and puts forward suggestions for China’s own future policies... The report points to a number of lessons for other countries from China’s experience, including the importance of a focus on education, an outward orientation, sustained public investments in infrastructure, and structural policies supportive of competition."

"China’s poverty reduction story is primarily a growth story. China’s rapid and sustained economic growth has been accompanied by a broad-based economic transformation. Reforms began in the agricultural sector, where poor people could benefit directly from improvements in productivity associated with the introduction of market incentives. The development of low-skilled, labor-intensive industries provided a source of employment for workers released from agriculture. Urbanization helped migrants take advantage of the new opportunities in the cities, and migrant transfers boosted incomes of their relatives remaining in the villages. Public investment in infrastructure improved living conditions in rural areas but also connected them with urban and export markets. Reforms in all these areas were incremental, which may have helped businesses and the population adjust to the rapid pace of change. Government policies targeted specifically to poverty reduction have also played an important role in improving the lives of poor people in rural areas, particularly after the poverty headcount dropped below 10 percent of the rural population, and contributed to the eradication of extreme poverty by 2020. China’s success in poverty reduction was supported by effective governance. Like its East Asian peers, China has been endowed with a capable and effective government, able to credibly commit to the target of poverty reduction, facilitate interagency coordination within and across various levels of government in implementing policies, and mobilize nongovernment stakeholders to cooperate in achieving policy objectives."

"The eradication of extreme poverty is not the end of China’s poverty reduction agenda. Instead, the focus will now need to shift toward closing remaining gaps in access to quality services, addressing persistent inequality of incomes and economic opportunities, and mitigating the risks for the most vulnerable associated with the expected continued economic transformation toward a greener, more urban, and more service-oriented economy."

"China’s success in poverty reduction holds lessons at both the macro and micro levels... An evaluation of China’s targeted poverty alleviation experience in recent years would benefit from further analysis of individual policy interventions and their interactions to better understand not just the effectiveness but also the efficiency and sustainability of the program. An analysis of the costs and benefits of policy intervention would also be warranted in a broader sense, helping to systematically account for factors such as the impact of infrastructure investments on poverty reduction or the merits of the hukou system and China’s managed urbanization policies. In all these areas, active exchanges between researchers within and outside of China and between academics and policy makers should be encouraged, and the data needed for high-quality empirical work should be made more widely available. This will help ensure that China’s poverty reduction achievements get the attention that they deserve. p. 66-67"

"We must address the root causes of terrorism to end it for all time. […] I believe putting resources into improving the lives of poor people is a better strategy than spending it on guns."

"Never again should a people starve in a world of plenty."

"If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth."

"For he will rescue the poor who cry for help,"

"What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord GOD of hosts. What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor?"

"The poor ye have always with you."

"If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you."

"So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man."

"The destruction of the poor is their poverty."

"Whoever mocks the poor reviles their Maker; whoever rejoices in their misfortune will not go unpunished."

"He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord."

"Those who shut their ears to the cry of the poor will themselves call out and not be answered."

"Blessed is he that considereth the poor."

"Speak out on behalf of the voiceless, and for the rights of all who are vulnerable. Speak out in order to judge with righteousness and to defend the needy and the poor."

"Paupertas omnium artium repertrix."

"Leave the poor Some time for self-improvement. Let them not Be forced to grind the bones out of their arms For bread, but have some space to think and feel Like moral and immortal creatures."

"L'or même à la laideur donne un teint de beauté: Mais tout devient affreux avec la pauvreté."

"Oh, the little more, and how much it is! And the little less, and what worlds away."

"Needy knife-grinder! whither are ye going? Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order; Bleak blows the blast—your hat has got a hole in it. So have your breeches."

"Thank God for poverty That makes and keeps us free, And lets us go our unobtrusive way, Glad of the sun and rain, Upright, serene, humane, Contented with the fortune of a day."

"Paupertatis onus patienter ferre memento."

"He is now fast rising from affluence to poverty."

"The beggarly last doit."

"And plenty makes us poor."

"Content with poverty, my soul I arm; And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm."

"Living from hand to mouth."

"The greatest man in history was the poorest."

"Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so."

"The nakedness of the indigent world may be clothed from the trimmings of the vain."

"Chill penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul."

"Yes, child of suffering, thou may'st well be sure He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor!"

"O God! that bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap!"

"Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, Would that its tone could reach the Rich, She sang this "Song of the Shirt!""

"Magnas inter opes inops."

"Pauper enim non est cui rerum suppetet usus."

"Ibit eo quo vis qui zonam perdidit."

"All this [wealth] excludes but one evil,—poverty."

"Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi."

"Hic vivimus ambitiosa Paupertate omnes."

"O Poverty, thy thousand ills combined Sink not so deep into the generous mind, As the contempt and laughter of mankind."

"Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator."

"Paupertas fugitur, totoque arcessitur orbe."

"If you are poor now, Æmilianus, you will always be poor. Riches are now given to none but the rich."

"Non est paupertas, Nestor, habere nihil."

"La pauvreté des biens est aysee à guerir; la pauvreté de l'âme, impossible."

"Rattle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!"

"Horrea formicæ tendunt ad inania nunquam Nullus ad amissas ibit amicus opes."

"Inops, potentem dum vult imitari, perit."

"Paupertas … omnes artes perdocet."

"But to the world no bugbear is so great, As want of figure and a small estate."

"Where are those troops of poor, that throng'd of yore The good old landlord's hospitable door?"

"Whene'er I walk the public ways, How many poor that lack ablution Do probe my heart with pensive gaze, And beg a trivial contribution."

"Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est."

"Nemo tam pauper vivit quam natus est."

"Poor people always lose in struggles."

"The poor in Resurrection City have come to Washington to show that the poor in America are sick, dirty, disorganized, and powerless—and they are criticized daily for being sick, dirty, disorganized, and powerless."

"Whene'er I take my walks abroad, How many poor I see!"

"As no one can adventure nearer the throne of God by virtue of his rank, his wealth, or his talent, so no one is kept farther from that throne by his low condition, or by his poverty of wealth, of learning, or of intellect. The prince and the sage are not more welcome to heaven than the poor and ignorant."

"Aspirations pure and high — Strength to do and to endure — Heir of all the Ages, I — Lo! I am no longer poor!"

"It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man."

"There is not such a mighty difference as some men imagine between the poor and the rich; in pomp, show, and opinion, there is a great deal, but little as to the pleasures and satisfactions of life. They enjoy the same earth and air and heavens; hunger and thirst make the poor man's meat and drink as pleasant and relishing as all the varieties which cover the rich man's table; and the labor of a poor man is more healthful, and many times more pleasant, too, than the ease and softness of the rich."

"The world's proverb is, "God help the poor, for the rich can help themselves;" but to our mind, it is just the rich who have most need of Heaven's help. Dives in scarlet is worse off than Lazarus in rags, unless Divine love shall uphold him."

"It was Lazarus faith, not his poverty, which brought him into Abraham's bosom."

"All that is seen is my form, ant, fly, prince, and pauper."

"Many of them fell into the slough of pauperism, and were saved from starvation by public doles."

"INCOME, n. The natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability, the commonly accepted standards being artificial, arbitrary and fallacious; for, as "Sir Sycophas Chrysolater" in the play has justly remarked, "the true use and function of property (in whatsoever it consisteth --coins, or land, or houses, or merchant- stuff, or anything which may be named as holden of right to one's own subservience) as also of honors, titles, preferments and place, and all favor and acquaintance of persons of quality or ableness, are but to get money. Hence it followeth that all things are truly to be rated as of worth in measure of their serviceableness to that end; and their possessors should take rank in agreement thereto, neither the lord of an unproducing manor, howsoever broad and ancient, nor he who bears an unremunerate dignity, nor yet the pauper favorite of a king, being esteemed of level excellency with him whose riches are of daily accretion; and hardly should they whose wealth is barren claim and rightly take more honor than the poor and unworthy.""

"A reporter meets interesting people. If he endures, he will get to know princes and presidents, popes and paupers, prostitutes and panderers."

"In 1890 "General" Booth attracted further public attention by the publication of a work entitled "In Darkest England, and the Way Out", in which he proposed to remedy pauperism and vice by a series of ten expedients: (1) the city colony; (2) the farm colony; (3) the over-sea colony; (4) the household salvage brigade; (5) the rescue homes for fallen women; (6) deliverance for the drunkard; (7) the prison-gate brigade; (8) the poor man's bank; (9)(9) the poor man's lawyer; (io) White chapel-by the-Sea."

"As regards pauperism, the government subsidizes Protestant and Catholic orphan houses."

"Important efforts were made to attract French colonists to the country, the colonization of Algeria appearing as a means towards the extinction of pauperism in the mother-country."

"Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly."

"Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper."

"Society, during the last hundred years, has been alternately perplexed and encouraged, respecting the two great questions -- how shall the criminal and pauper be disposed of, in order to reduce crime and reform the criminal on the one hand, and, on the other, to diminish pauperism and restore the pauper to useful citizenship?"

"But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal — there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honourable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levellers, and in our courts all men are created equal."

"The present distress is undoubtedly insufferable. Pauperism must go. But industrialization is no remedy. The evil does not lie in the use of bullock-carts. It lies in our selfishness and want of consideration for our neighbours. If we have no love for neighbours, no change, however revolutionary, can do us any good."

"Not under its own detested name; it will call itself apprenticeship; it will put on the disguise of laws to prevent pauperism, by providing that every colored man who does not work in some prescribed way shall be arrested, and placed at the disposal of the authorities,- or it will do its work by means of laws regulating wages and labor."

"Individual acts of aristocratic generosity do not eliminate pauperism; they perpetuate it."

"As population thickens in your cities, and the pressure of want is felt, the gaunt spectre of pauperism will stalk among you, and Socialism and Communism claim to be heard. Truly America has a great future before her——great in care and responsibility – great in true glory if she is guided in wisdom and righteousness - great in shame if she fails."

"And as he saw the beginning of wealth, he noted the first appearance of pauperism. He saw degradation forming as he saw the advent of leisure and affluence."

"The respect for authority, the presumption in favor of those who have won intellectual reputation, is within reasonable limits, both prudent and becoming. But it should not be carried too far, and there are some things especially as to which it behooves us all to use our own judgment and to maintain free minds. For not only does the history of the world show that undue deference to authority has been the potent agency through which errors have been enthroned and superstitions perpetuated, but there are regions of thought in which the largest powers and the greatest acquirements cannot guard against aberrations or assure deeper insight. One may stand on a box and look over the heads of his fellows, but he no better sees the stars. The telescope and the microscope reveal depths which to the unassisted vision are closed. Yet not merely do they bring us no nearer to the cause of suns and animal-cula, but in looking through them the observer must shut his eyes to what lies about him. That intention is at the expense of extension is seen in the mental as in the physical sphere. A man of special learning may be a fool as to common relations. And that he who passes for an intellectual prince may be a moral pauper there are examples enough to show."

"Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty. As millionaires increase, pauperism grows. The more millionaires, the more paupers."

"His indefatigable exertions in the detection and correction of the great abuses then existing in the management of the York Lunatic asylum, and the formation of another and very extensive establishment for the care and protection of pauper lunatics at Wakefield, will be monuments of his humble spirit and perseverance and philanthropy."

"To continue in poverty for any long period means in the end the loss of the power of doing work, and to be unable to work means in the end pauperism."

"The evils of poverty are not barren, but procreative, and... the workers in poverty, are in spite of themselves, giving to the world a litter of miserables, whose degeneracy is so stubborn and fixed that reclamation is almost impossible, especially when the only process of reclamation must consist in trying to force the pauper, vagrant, and weakling back into that struggle with poverty which is all of the time defeating stronger and better natures than theirs."

"Rattle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!"

"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."

"America has become one of the foremost countries in regard to the depth of the abyss which lies between the handful of arrogant multinationals who wallow in moral filth and material luxury, and the millions of working people who constantly live on the verge of pauperism."

"The first – that in relation to wrongs, misdemeanors and non-performance of contracts. The other embraces all in which, in its nature, and without wrong requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools, charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself."

"Contrast Pilate with the prisoner before him, Jesus. Pilate was deeply concerned with position and power. Jesus cared for none of these things. Which was the richer in all that makes a great personality and true success in life? Contrast Nero, the Roman Emperor, and the prisoner named Paul who was beheaded in Nero's reign. Who was the real pauper, Nero or Paul?"

"Thinking and Thought: Thoughts are funny little things, They can make paupers or make kings.]]"

"When they see me holding fish, they can see that I am comfortable with kings as well as with paupers."

"My object in all my proceedings has been simply to establish the independence of Ireland for the benefit of all the people of Ireland — noblemen, clergymen, … in politics did I not think it necessary to do all in my power to make an end of the horrible scenes the country presents — the pauperism and the starvation, and the crime and the vice, and the hatred of all classes against each other. I thought that there should be an end to that horrible system which, while it lasted, gave me no peace of mind; for I could not enjoy anything in my country so long as I saw my countrymen forced to be vicious, forced To hate each other, and degraded to the level of paupers and brutes."

"In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers."

"The miseries of poverty are no longer glossed over by such political assurances as Redburn's belief that “to be a born American citizen seems a guarantee against pauperism; and this, perhaps, springs from the virtue of a vote."

"The picture which Isaiah presents of the Judean masses is most unfavorable. In his view, the mass-man be he high or be he lowly, rich or poor, prince or pauper gets off very badly. He appears as not only weak-minded and weak-willed, but as by consequence knavish, arrogant, grasping, dissipated, unprincipled, unscrupulous. The mass-woman also gets off badly, as sharing all the mass-man’s untoward qualities, and contributing a few of her own in the way of vanity and laziness, extravagance and foible."

"There's a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot; To the churchyard a pauper is going I wot; The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs, And hark to the dirge that the sad driver sings Rattle his bones over the stones, He's only a pauper whom nobody owns."

"A rich man who is stingy is the worst pauper."

"Prayer sometimes dulls the hunger of the pauper, like a mother's finger thrust into the mouth of her starving baby."

"The true line to be drawn between pauperism and honest poverty is the clothes-line. With it begins the effort to be clean that is the first and the best evidence of a desire to be honest."

"He was a confidence-man, pauper, tutor, blackmailer, paedophile, translator – and author of seven novels and a number of short stories. Rolfe was a trickster whose failed life stank to himself as to the few friends whom he had and betrayed. But he was a fascinating figure: a bore, but also a pseudo-Borgian freak whose vindictiveness and paranoia have deservedly become legendary."

"Anything that encourages pauperism, anything that relaxes the manly fiber and lowers self-respect, is an unmixed evil. The soup kitchen style of philanthropy is as thoroughly demoralizing as most forms of vice or oppression, and it is of course particularly revolting when some corporation or private individual undertakes it, but even in a spirit of foolish charity, but for purposes of self-advertisement."

"Anything that encourages pauperism, anything that relaxes the manly fiber and lowers self-respect, is an unmixed evil."

"It torments landlords, paupers and lovers of pleasure. It torments us through the sweet sounds of music and parties. It torments us through beautiful beds, palaces and decorations. It torments us through the darkness of the five evil passions."

"The third group [of society] are those irresponsible and reckless ones having little regard for the consequences of their acts, or whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers. Many of this group are diseased, feeble-minded, and are of the pauper element dependent upon the normal and fit members of society for their support. There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped."

"I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king, I've been up and down and over and out, And I know one thing, each time I find myself flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race."

"He is glad to give and distribute; and clamorous pauperism feasteth. While honest Labor, pining, hideth his sharp ribs."

"India has 2,000,000 gods, and worships them all. In religion, other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire."

"I have not professionally dealt in truth. Many when they come to die have spent all the truth that was in them, and enter the next world as paupers. I have saved up enough to make an astonishment there."

"I pray thee of thy grace believe me, I did but speak the truth, most dread lord; for I am the meanest among thy subjects, being a pauper born, and 'tis by a sore mischance and accident I am here, albeit I was therein nothing blameful. I am but young to die, and thou canst save me with one little word. Oh speak it, sir!"

"A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. Better go down upon your marrow-bones And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather; For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world."

"You don't need to be a statistician or an economist to be able to read the basic facts in the world today: the dominant classes and the corporations that they control extract surplus profits from the wealth produced by society, while billions of human beings who work to produce that wealth find themselves treated as if they are surplus humanity. This immense social divide, a widening gap across the class structure, can be observed in almost every single country in the world. This gap is not the result of any natural development, let alone of the magical phrase 'the Market'. This chasm across human society is produced and reproduced solely because of the civilizational system that privileges the private property of the few above the social needs of the many. That system is known as capitalism, a dynamic social process that - through inter-capitalist competition, through advancements in science and technology - has led to the vast increases in productivity but at the same time - because of private property - to immense social inequality. This double movement of capitalism, which generates enormous social wealth and enormous social inequality, both confounds humanity and provides immense potential for solutions to our great dilemmas - solutions that we call socialism."

"The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."

"The free market’s the best mechanism ever devised to put resources to their most efficient and productive use. … The government isn’t particularly good at that. But the market isn’t so good at making sure that the wealth that’s produced is being distributed fairly or wisely. Some of that wealth has to be plowed back into education, so that the next generation has a fair chance, and to maintain our infrastructure, and provide some sort of safety net for those who lose out in a market economy. And it just makes sense that those of us who’ve benefited most from the market should pay a bigger share."

"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality."

"Lacking much historical information and assuming (1) that victims of injustice generally do worse than they otherwise would and (2) that those from the least well-off group in the society have the highest probabilities of being the (descendants of) victims of the most serious injustice who are owed compensation by those who benefited from the injustices, ... then a rough rule of thumb for rectifying injustices might seem to be the following: organize society so as to maximize the position of whatever group ends up least well-off in the society. ... These issues are very complex and are best left to a full treatment of the principle of rectification. In the absence of such a treatment applied to a particular society, one cannot use the analysis and theory presented here to condemn any particular scheme of transfer payments, unless it is clear that no considerations of rectification of injustice could apply to justify it. Although to introduce socialism as the punishment for our sins would be to go too far, past injustices might seem to be so great as to make necessary in the short run a more extensive state in order to rectify them."

"In the last 30 years, there has been a massive redistribution of wealth. The problem is this redistribution has gone in the wrong direction."

"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, And show the heavens more just."

"Nothing can you steal, But thieves do lose it."

"Should the nation's wealth be redistributed? It has been and continues to be redistributed to a few people in a manner strikingly unhelpful."

"Or les trois classes d'être créés par les mœurs sont : L'homme qui travaille ; L'homme qui pense ; L'homme qui ne fait rien."

"In the status game, then, the working-class child starts out with a handicap and, to the extent that he cares what the persons think of him or has internalised the dominant middle-class attitudes toward , he may be expected to feel some 'shame'."

"The great goal of the backlash is to nurture a cultural class war, and the first step in doing so, as we have seen, is to deny the economic basis of social class. After all, you can hardly deride liberals as society’s "elite" or present the GOP as the party of the common man if you acknowledge the existence of the corporate world — the power that creates the nation’s real elite, that dominates its real class system, and that wields the Republican Party as its personal political system."

"The dominant, almost general, idea of revolution — particularly the Socialist idea — is that revolution is a violent change of social conditions through which one social class, the working class, becomes dominant over another class, the capitalist class."

"The collectivity is divided into two classes of people: those who, by virtue of their ownership of the means of doing, command others to do, and those who, by virtue of the fact that they are deprived of access to the means of doing, do what the others tell them to do."

"Art is neither the monopoly of a nation, nor of a social class, or the major age. People of outstanding talents and fine feelings, people who are not lacking in imagnation and the sense of creation, as well as good will-power. They are privileged to be involved in ART."

"We must want equality, and we must grasp that equality does not coexist with class structure."

"Mimi used to tell me that anyone who said they were middle class probably wasn’t."

"Scientific observers often view living systems as existing in spaces which they conceptualize or abstract from the phenomena with which they deal. Examples of such spaces are:"

"# Pecking order in birds or other animals."

"# Social class space..."

"# among ethnic or racial groups."

"# Political distance among political parties of the right and left."

"And when you have a society where 50 million people work for a living but have no health insurance, where millions have lost their savings and pensions to the Wall Street scandals, where no one feels secure that his job will be his job a year from now-well, those aren't race issues, (although African-Americans are the ones hit the hardest) those are bread-and-butter nightmares facing all Americans who are not privileged to be in the upper 10 percent. They are issues of class, and once the discussion turns to class, those in charge seek to shut it down as quickly as possible. Why? Because class is what will unite white and black and brown in this country and, God forbid, if that day ever comes ... well, let's just say the powers that be will be wringing there hands over much more than some smart-ass comic strip."

"In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly motivated and endowed. The expectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be affected by their social class."

"In classical cultures, an ascended class had to justify itself before those now below in the social structure. But the culture revolution of our time has eliminated this need for class- as well as self-justification. Nevertheless, those below still seek to emulate the ascendant social class, without being convinced of its superiority."

"It is wrong to think that the mixing of classes can affect the karma of people in a negative way. At the present time, quite often, the healthy, spiritually sound peasant family offers the best environment for a highly developed spirit. One's having been born in a palace or in a corner of a cobbler's shack should not be deemed the result of a mixing of classes, but, rather, to have been for the purpose of fulfilling a personal karma or else a certain mission. Thus, Boehme was a cobbler, but this was for the very reason that in those days this was the way in which he could best fulfil his great mission, in comparative peace. The dreadful karma of humanity is the result of the violation of cosmic laws, beginning with birth, but it is not the result of the mixing of social classes. Thus, marriage will be scientifically treated in the future. It is even said that people should conjoin according to their affinity with certain elements. 5 May 1934"

"The institution of a leisure class has emerged gradually during the transition from primitive savagery to barbarism; or more precisely, during the transition from a peaceable to a consistently warlike habit of life."

"Propriety requires respectable women to abstain more consistently from useful effort and to make more of a show of leisure than the men of the same social classes. ...Her sphere is within the household, which she should "beautify," and of which she should be the "chief ornament." The male head of the household is not currently spoken of as its ornament. ...attention to conspicuous waste of substance and effort should normally be the sole economic function of the woman."

"In case you haven’t noticed, we … dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class. Send 'em anywhere. Make 'em do anything. Piece of cake."

"There is nothing to which men cling more tenaciously than to their class privileges and vested interests except perhaps to their illusions."

"Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation."

"The COVID-19 outbreak is yet another demonstration of how the Indian poor are systematically excluded from the government’s policy-making. A case in point is the government’s failure to account for the 40 million poor and homeless children before declaring the lockdown."

"[O]n my measure, if you have hundreds of thousands of children living in homes without enough to survive, that’s a blatant failure. What else could you describe it as?"

"There should be no place in a wealthy society like ours for children to grow up without their being met."

"One in five American children live in poverty, even as s tout employment highs."

"The plight of impoverished children anywhere should evoke sympathy, exemplifying as it does the suffering of the innocent and defenseless. Poverty among children in a wealthy country like the United States, however, should summon shame and outrage as well. Unlike poor countries (sometimes run by leaders more interested in lining their pockets than anything else), what excuse does the United States have for its striking levels of child poverty? After all, it has the world’s 10th highest per capita income at $62,795 and an unrivalled gross domestic product (GDP) of $21.3 trillion. Despite that, in 2020, an estimated 11.9 million American kids—16.2 percent of the total—live below the official poverty line, which is a paltry $25,701 for a family of four with two kids. Put another way, according to the Children’s Defense Fund, kids now constitute one-third of the 38.1 million Americans classified as poor and 70 percent of them have at least one —so poverty can’t be chalked up to parental indolence."

"The conservative response to all this remains predictable: You can’t solve complex social problems like child poverty by throwing money at them. Besides, government antipoverty programs only foster dependence and create bloated bureaucracies without solving the problem. It matters little that the success of American social programs proves this claim to be flat-out false."

"Imagine, for a moment, this scenario: a 200-meter footrace in which the starting blocks of some competitors are placed 75 meters behind the others. Barring an Olympic-caliber runner, those who started way in front will naturally win. Now, think of that as an analogy for the predicament that American kids born in poverty face through no fault of their own. They may be smart and diligent, their parents may do their best to care for them, but they begin life with a huge handicap. As a start, the nutrition of poor children will generally be inferior to that of other kids. No surprise there, but here’s what’s not common knowledge: A childhood nutritional deficit matters for years afterwards, possibly for life. [...] Indeed, the process starts even earlier. Poor mothers may themselves have nutritional deficiencies that increase their risk of having babies with . That, in turn, can have long-term effects on children’s health, what level of education they reach, and their future incomes since the quality of nutrition affects , concentration, and cognitive capacity. It also increases the chances of having and experiencing mental health problems. Poor children are likely to be less healthy in other ways as well, for reasons that range from having a greater susceptibility to asthma to higher concentrations of lead in their blood. Moreover, poor families find it harder to get good health care. And add one more thing: in our zip-code-influenced public-school system, such children are likely to attend schools with far fewer resources than those in more affluent neighborhoods."

"Our national opioid problem also affects the well-being of children in a striking fashion. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), between 2008 and 2012, a third of women in their childbearing years filled -based medication prescriptions in pharmacies and an estimated 14 percent–22 percent of them were pregnant. The result: an alarming increase in the number of babies exposed to opioids in utero and experiencing withdrawal symptoms at birth, which is also known as neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, in medical lingo. [...] At this point, you won’t be surprised to learn that NAS and child poverty are connected. Prescription opioid use rates are much higher for women on , who are more likely to be poor than those with private insurance. Moreover, the abuse of, and overdose deaths from, opioids (whether obtained through prescriptions or illegally) have been far more widespread among the poor."

"From the months before birth on, poverty diminishes opportunity, capacity, and agency and its consequences reach into adulthood. [...] Child poverty certainly does ensure a future-rigged society. The good news (though not in Donald Trump’s America): The race to a half-decent life (or better) doesn’t have to be rigged."

"Can children born into poverty defy the odds, realize their potential, and lead fulfilling lives? Conservatives will point to stories of people who cleared all the obstacles created by child poverty as proof that the real solution is hard work. But let’s be clear: Poor children shouldn’t have to find themselves on a tilted playing field from the first moments of their lives. Individual success stories aside, Americans raised in poor families do markedly less well compared to those from middle class or affluent homes—and it doesn’t matter whether you choose college attendance, employment rates, or future household income as your measure. And the longer they live in poverty the worse the odds that they’ll escape it in adulthood; for one thing, they’re far less likely to finish high school or attend college than their more fortunate peers. [...] Yet childhood circumstances can be (and have been) changed—and the sorts of government programs that conservatives love to savage have helped enormously in that process."

"Our own history and that of other wealthy countries show that child poverty is anything but an unalterable reality. The record also shows that changing it requires mobilizing funds of the sort now being wasted on ventures like America’s multitrillion-dollar forever wars."

"Programs that reduce child poverty help even in years when poor or near-poor parents gain and, of course, are critical in bad times, since sooner or later booming job markets also bust."

"13 million children are hungry in America. Yet most politicians do not even talk about it. Children aren’t old enough to vote, nor old enough to work therefore they have no financial leverage. They’re not old enough to advocate for themselves. That’s our job. The political establishment has simply normalized the despair of millions of American children who are chronically traumatized by poverty, hunger, and all manner of violence. This is what happens when government becomes more an instrument of corporate profits then of conscience. The vulnerabilities, challenges and chronic trauma of millions of American children should be recognized as a social justice issue. An economic system with no particular use for children - or for older people - has left both groups underserved. This country shouldn’t be run like a business, it should be run like a family. First we should take care of our children & older people, making sure they have everything they need to thrive. Everything else would then heal itself from there. Moral repair precedes societal repair."

"In the , Nyamavhuvhu (August) signals the end of winter. The strong winds carry away the frost as they usher in the warmth of summer. With the silent strength of a new season, public discontent towards President ’s failing policies sweeps across Zimbabwe, manifesting itself through mounting displeasure and the growing threat of civil unrest. On the streets of the capital, , a middle-aged woman lies unconscious on the asphalt. An uncanny silence hangs in the air, punctuated only by the sound of water cannons patrolling the street and a sea of riot police conversing in hushed tones with each other. The blue-helmeted police, a signature of the Robert Mugabe era, march in straight lines through the central business district. Businesses are closed. Thick clouds of off-white teargas fill the sky. An old, grey-haired man who is left behind by the fleeing crowd is kicked in the ribs by two police officers and dragged by his side. A young man who tries to assist the stricken woman is arrested and bundled into a police truck. Elsewhere, Red Cross volunteers attend to an old woman who has suffered injuries to her head after being beaten."

"People are increasingly dissatisfied with the impact of failing economic policies, a broken public health system, the soaring prices of basic goods and the collapse of . They had been waiting in preparation for a protest march organised by the Movement for Democratic Change at Africa Unity Square, a garden in the heart of . In this same garden, just a few years ago, stood as a lone protester calling for Mugabe to go."

"Protesters chanted songs similar to those sung during the liberation struggle. They sat in the middle of the road, in an act of peaceful protest. As they sat, a wave of baton-wielding riot police charged at them in an attempt to disperse the growing crowd. Many, including older people and women, who could not run away as fast as the more youthful protesters, were badly beaten. The violent police clampdown is just the latest action in a tale of unbroken state repression that continues from Mugabe’s era."

"The perpetrators have yet to be indicted or held accountable for the loss of life, despite a theatrical commission of inquiry launched by Mnangagwa in a bid to repair his already crumbling international image."

"It has become a common expression to say "dirty tramp," or, "as dirty as a tramp"; but this is not always true, except occasionally in the large cities; although such a term may be applied morally to them all. There is one species of tramp who wanders from workhouse to workhouse; and this man, having every night to conform strictly to the laws of cleanliness, is no less clean, often cleaner, than a number of people whose houses contain bath rooms which they seldom use. Another species of tramp is proud of being a good beggar, who scorns the workhouse, but who knows well that a clean appearance is essential to his success."

"One day my friend the barber called me aside: "Say, kid, I've been delegated to tell you that you've got lice." ... ... I could scarcely have felt more beyond the pale, more a pariah. I had not detected them before, because I was ignorant of the thought of having them, and because their grey colour was exactly that of the inside of my woolen shirt. ... I look back with a shudder even yet to that experience. During my subsequent tramp-career I never could grow callous to vermin, as a few others that I met, did. Once I met a tramp who advised me not to bother about 'em .. and you would soon get used to 'em .. and not feel them biting al all .. but most tramps "boil up"—that is, take off their clothes, a piece at a time, and boil them—whenever they find opportunity."

"The tramp's real means of livelihood is begging. He can tell at a glance a house where he will get a "hand-out." A "hand-out" is a parcel of food, which derives its name from being handed out through a half-opened door. Yes, the tramp develops into a skillful and expert beggar. Some people may think that there is no art in begging, but if they do they are much mistaken. It takes a clever man to know what stranger to ask for money. As he goes along the street he must be able to single out at a glance the giving type of man; for, as the tramp will inform you, there are really in existence men who like to give money to anyone who asks for it. They are rare, but they do exist. The thing is to be able to single out this man, and then to know if he has money in his pocket, and if he be in the right mood. To do this requires genius."

"Every once in a while, in newspapers, magazines, and biographical dictionaries, I run upon sketches of my life, wherein, delicately phrased, I learn that it was in order to study sociology that I became a tramp. This is very nice and thoughtful of the biographers, but it is inaccurate. I became a tramp—well, because of the life that was in me, of the wanderlust in my blood that would not let me rest. Sociology was merely incidental; it came afterward in the same manner that a wet skin follows a ducking. I went on "The Road" because I couldn't keep away from it; because I hadn't the price of the railroad fare in my jeans; because I was so made that I couldn't work all my life on "one same shift"; because—well, just because it was easier to than not to."