Quotes About Poverty

Oh, these cursed phrases, these lies of language, under which people with meat in their bellies and whole shirts on their backs shelter themselves, and evade the responsibility of their brothers and sisters, empty of belly and without whole shirts on their backs.

Wherever a man of vigour and stature manages to grow up, he is haled forthwith into the army. A soldier, as Bernard Shaw has said, 'ostensibly a heroic and patriotic defender of his country, is really an unfortunate man driven by destitution to offer himself as food for powder for the sake of regular rations, shelter, and clothing.

On the other hand, the great helpless mass of the population, the people of the abyss, was sinking into a brutish apathy of content with misery.

A exploração da mão-de-obra, os salários de miséria, as hordas de desempregados e a multidão sem abrigo e sem casa é o espectáculo a que se assiste quando há mais homens do que trabalho.

As some one has said, they do everything for the poor except get off their backs

It was not a column, but a mob, an awful river that filled the street, the people of the abyss, mad with drink and wrong, up at last and roaring for the blood of their masters. I had seen the people of the abyss before, gone through its ghettos, and thought I knew it; but I found that I was now looking on it for the first time. Dumb apathy had vanished. It was now dynamic—a fascinating spectacle of dread.

Christ told the rich young man to sell all he had," Ernest said bitterly. "The Bishop obeyed Christ's injunction and got locked up in a madhouse. Times have changed since Christ's day. A rich man to-day who gives all he has to the poor is crazy. There is no discussion. Society has spoken.

I confess I began to grow incensed at this happy crowd streaming by, and to extract a sort of satisfaction from the London statistics which demonstrate that one in every four adults is destined to die on public charity, either in the workhouse, the infirmary, or the asylum.

He paid two dollars and a half a month rent for the small room he got from his Portuguese landlady, Maria Silva, a virago and a widow, hard working and harsher tempered, rearing her large brood of children somehow, and drowning her sorrow and fatigue at irregular intervals in a gallon of the thin, sour wine that she bought from the corner grocery and saloon for fifteen cents. From detesting her and her foul tongue at first, Martin grew to admire her as he observed the brave fight she made.

The population of London is one-seventh of the total population of the United Kingdom, and in London, year in and year out, one adult in every four dies on public charity, either in the workhouse, the hospital, or the asylum. When the fact that the well-to-do do not end thus is taken into consideration', it becomes manifest that it is the fate of at least one in every three adult workers to die on public charity.

I was in touch with great souls who exalted flesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and to whom the thin wail of the starved slum child meant more than all the pomp and circumstance of commercial expansion and world empire.

Quando quer que um homem surgisse e quisesse ir adiante, todos os que ficaram parados no tempo diziam que ele estava regredindo e devia ser morto. E a gente pobre ajudava a apedrejá-lo, pois era tola. Todos nós éramos tolos, exceto os que engordavam e não trabalhavam. Os tolos eram chamados de sábios, e os sábios eram apedrejados. Homens que trabalhavam não tinham o suficiente para comer, e homens que não trabalhavam comiam demais.

Mercanti della carità, andate ad imparare dai poveri, perché solo i poveri sono caritatevoli. Loro non danno né negano dal loro sovrappiù, perché di sovrappiù non ne hanno. Loro danno, non negano mai [...]. Dare un osso al cane non è carità. Carità è spartire l'osso col cane avendo fame quanto lui.

Without plenty, the wealthy lack compassion for the poor, hoarding without sharing. Without law, the strong bully the weak, stealing by force.

I see how the gaping abyss between those who have much and those who have nothing can cause dangerous fractures in society. I see how power corrupts, how the people are manipulated and kept in their place. I

What kind of a country are we livin' in, eh? Where there's people feelin' pain in their bellies where food should be, and widows left wantin'—and little children dyin' for need of the hospital.

Jan had never seen a really sumptuous establishment like Lancut, but he had worked often at Castle Gorka and could see the vast difference between how a count lived, with his fifty horses and forty servants, and how his peasants lived, with meat once a year, a new suit of clothes once every ten years, little medicine and less education.

The worst thing a nation can do to itself is to cultivate and maintain a supply of cheap labor. When salaries are kept down, money stops circulating, taxes bring in diminished funds, and everybody loses.

A major part of the explanation is that the missionary father has a wife who is also a missionary, just as well educated as he is. The children cannot escape being intelligent, and because the family is so poor, the children have to be clever about money. What a combination

He is poor who is dissatisfied; he is rich who is contented with what he has, and he is richer who is generous with what he has.

You will then utilize your poverty for the cultivation of patience, hope and courage; and your lack of time in the gaining of promptness of action and decision of mind, by seizing the precious moments as they present themselves for your acceptance.

Blessedness, not material possessions, is the measure of right thought; wretchedness, not lack of material possessions, is the measure of wrong thought. A man may be cursed and rich; he may be blessed and poor.

Indigence and indulgence are the two extremes of wretchedness.

As of January of 2013 almost half the world lived on less than $2.5 a day, and 80% of the world lived on less than $10 a day