Quotes About Poverty

The poor man shuddered inside, flooded with an angelic bliss; he told himself in a burst of joy that this would last all his life; he

Misery, we repeat, had been good for him. Poverty in youth, when it succeeds, has this magnificent property about it, that it turns the whole will towards effort, and the whole soul towards aspiration.

S'il avait eu le Pérou dans sa poche, certainement il l'eût donné à la danseuse ; mais Gringoire n'avait pas le Pérou, et d'ailleurs l'Amérique n'était pas encore découverte.

A hundred francs, thought Fantine. But in what trade can one earn a hundred sous a day? Come! said she, let us sell what is left. The unfortunate girl became a woman of the town.

What is this history of Fantine? It is society purchasing a slave. From whom? From misery. From hunger, cold, isolation, destitution. A dolorous bargain. A soul for a morsel of bread. Misery offers; society accepts.

As long as there are misérables there will be a cloud on the horizon that can become a phantom and a phantom that can become Marat.

three great problems of the century—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved;

Il visitait les pauvres tant qu'il avait de l'argent; quand il n'en avait plus, il visitait les riches.

VOLUME II.—COSETTE

He asked himself whether human society could have the right also to subject its members,on the one hand,to its crazy lack of foresight and,on the other,to its pitiless foresight,and to hold a poor man forever between a lack and an excess-lack of work and excess of punishment

It sometimes happens that, even contrary to principles, even contrary to liberty, equality, and fraternity, even contrary to the universal vote, even contrary to the government, by all for all, from the depths of its anguish, of its discouragements and its destitutions, of its fevers, of its distresses, of its miasmas, of its ignorances, of its darkness, that great and despairing body, the rabble, protests against, and that the populace wages battle against, the people. Beggars

when I see humanity ripped apart and events patched up, and so many spots on the sun and so many holes in the moon, when I see so much misery everywhere, I suspect that God is not rich. The appearance exists, it is true, but I feel that he is hard up.

long as the three great problems of the century—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved;

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

destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use. HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862.

For sixteen sous he had a smile and a dinner.

As long as ignorance and misery exist in the world, books like the one you are about to read are, perhaps, not entirely useless

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

Yet internally, poverty, the proletariat, wages, education

Les miserables

Un prete opulento è un controsenso. Il prete deve tenersi vicino al povero.

Poor children cannot enter the public gardens; still, one would think that, as children, they had a right to the flowers.

and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in other words

other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use.