Poverty Quotes - Page 2

• There is something about poverty that smells like death. Dead dreams dropping off the heart like leaves in a dry season and rotting around the feet; impulses smothered too long in the fetid air of underground caves. The soul lives in sickly air. People can be slaveships in shoes.

  Zora Neale Hurston

  Dream, Heart, Smell

  Zora Neale Hurston (1990). “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, Harper Perennial

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• It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty.

  Juvenal

  Inspirational, Men, Quality

  "Satires". Book by Juvenal, III, line 164, 1890.

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• The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Money, Economic Inequality, History

  Second Inaugural Address, 20 Jan. 1937

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• A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread.

  Georges Bernanos

  Men, Needs, Bread

  Georges Bernanos, Rémy Rougeau (2002). “The Diary of a Country Priest”, p.62, Da Capo Press

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• To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Men, Race, Land

  The Souls of Black Folk ch. 1 (1903)

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• The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Political, Politics, Sometimes

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.236, Simon and Schuster

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• And plenty makes us poor.

  John Dryden

  Poor, Plenty

  John Dryden (1972). “The Works of John Dryden, Volume II: Poems, 1681-1684”, p.47, Univ of California Press

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• In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.

  Anatole France

  Peace, Anger, Sleep

  "The Red Lily". Book by Anatole France, 1894.

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• Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving!

  O. Henry

  Art, Food, Family Love

  O. Henry (2015). “O. Henry's stories: Short Stories and Classic Literature”, p.218, 谷月社

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• There is a common tendency to ignore the poor or to develop some rationalisation for the good fortune of the fortunate.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Common, Poor, Fortune

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• Extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere.

  Kofi Annan

  Prowess, Threat, Extremes

  "What’s Poverty Got to Do With It?" by Freeman Osonuga, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 22, 2013.

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

  George Bernard Shaw

  Evil, Crime, Poor

  Major Barbara (1907) preface

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• Poverty is no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.

  Sydney Smith

  Men, Poor, Disgrace

  In 'Sidney Smith: His Wit and Wisdom' (1900) p. 89 Science is his forte, and omniscience his foible. On William Whewell, in Isaac Todhunter 'William Whewell' (1876) vol. 1, p. 410

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• It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.

  Mother Teresa

  Life, Happiness, Success

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• Almsgiving tends to perpetuate poverty; aid does away with it once and for all

  Evita Peron

  Doe, Poor, Aids

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• She lived almost fifty years of her life completely dedicated to the care of the poor and the marginalized. Astonishingly, for those nearly fifty years she identified completely with the poor she served by her own experience of being seemingly unwanted and unloved by God. In a mystical way — through this painful interior "darkness" — she tasted their greatest poverty of being "unwanted, unloved, and uncared for."

  Mother Teresa

  Catholic, Naked, Homeless

  "A Call to Mercy: Hearts to Love, Hands to Serve".

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

  Washington Irving

  Men, Ruined, Pretension

  Washington Irving (2006). “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories From the Sketch Book”, p.33, Penguin

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• The combined efforts of millions of concerned citizens could do wonders to help the impoverished. The American people are ready for action!

  Barbara Boxer

  People, Effort, Citizens

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• The times talk to us of so much poverty in the world and this is a scandal. Poverty in the world is a scandal. In a world where there is so much wealth, so many resources to feed everyone, it is unfathomable that there are so many hungry children, that there are so many children without an education, so many poor persons. Poverty today is a cry.

  Pope Francis

  Children, World, Scandal

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• Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Giving, Wealth, Poor

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.121, Graphic Arts Books

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• I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.

  Robert Kennedy

  Believe, Evil Government, Long

  Robert F. Kennedy (1968). “A New Day: Robert F. Kennedy”

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• 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.

  Frederick Douglass

  Peace, Patriotic, Ignorance

  Speech on the twenty-fourth anniversary of emancipation in the District of Columbia,Washington, D.C., Apr. 1886

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• Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

  Samuel Johnson

  Rainy Day, Advice, Enemy

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (letter to Boswell, 7 Dec. 1782)

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• No man can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Men, Worship, Neighbor

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• When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.

  Hélder Câmara

  Motivational, Inspiring, Wisdom

  "Peace Behind Bars: A Peacemaking Priest's Journey from Jail". Book by Father John Dear, 1995.

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