Quotes About Poverty

there is a point when the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confused in a word, a mortal word, les miserables

So long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use.

For there are many great deeds done in the small struggles of life. There is a determined though unseen bravery that defends itself foot by foot in the darkness against the fatal invasions of necessity and dishonesty. Noble and mysterious triumphs that no eye sees and no fame rewards, and no flourish of triumph salutes. Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are the battlefields that have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes.

The first proof of charity in a priest, especially a bishop, is poverty.

I encountered in the street a penniless young man who was in love. His hat was old and his jacket worn, with holes at the elbows; water soaked through his shoes, but starlight flooded through his soul.

What is the true story of Fantine? It is the story of society's purchase of a slave. A slave purchased from poverty, hunger, cold, loneliness, defencelessness, destitution. A squalid bargain: a human soul for a hunk of bread. Poverty offers and society accepts.

there is a point, moreover, at which the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, Les Miserables; whose fault is it? And then, is it not when the fall is lowest that charity ought to be greatest?

Fex urbis, lex orbis (The dregs of the city, the law of the earth), from Les Miserables, attributed to St. Jerome

A soul for a piece of bread. Misery makes the offer; society accepts.

So long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

Nothing is more charming than the glow of happiness amid squalor. There is a rose-tinted attic in all our lives.

There is a point at which the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, a fatal word, Les Miserables.

Large sums passed through his hands. Nevertheless, nothing changed his way of life or added the slightest luxury to his simple life. Quite the contrary, As there is always more misery at the lower end than humanity at the top, everything was given away before it was received, like water on parched soil. No matter how much money came to him, he never had enough. And then he robbed himself.

Those are rare who fall without becoming degraded; there is a point, moreover, at which the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, a fatal word, Les Misérables.

In days gone by, I stole a loaf of bread in order to live; to-day, in order to live, I will not steal a name.

I have an old hat which is not worth three francs, I have a coat which lacks buttons in front, my shirt is all ragged, my elbows are torn, my boots let in the water; for the last six weeks I have not thought about it, and I have not told you about it. You only see me at night, and you give me your love; if you were to see me in the daytime, you would give me a sou!

The poor priest went to his poor mountaineers with empty hands, and he returns from them with his hands full. I set out bearing only my faith in God; I have brought back the treasure of a cathedral.

Bestow on an individual the useless and deprive him of the necessary, and you have the gamin.

Misery offers; society accepts

A saint addicted to abnegation is a dangerous neighbor; he is very likely to infect you with an incurable poverty, a stiffening of the articulations necessary to advancement, and, in fact, more renunciation than you would like; and men flee from this contagious virtue. Hence the isolation of Monseigneur Bienvenu. We live in a sad society. Succeed--that is the advice which falls drop by drop from the overhanging corruption.

But what was tragic about the girl was that she had not been born ugly. She might even have been a pretty child, and the grace proper to her age was still at odds with the repulsive premature aging induced by loose living and poverty. A trace of beauty still lingered in the sixteen-year-old face, like pale sunlight fading beneath the massed clouds of a winter's dawn.

He visited the poor so long as he had any money; when he no longer had any, he visited the rich.

He had no shelter, no bread, no fire, no love; but he was merry because he was free.

There are two stages - living on little, and living on nothing. They are like two rooms, the first dark, the second pitch-black.