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."

"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."

"Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator."

"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."