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Poverty Quotes

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Poverty Quotes

“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.”

World Needs Mind Helping Heaven Poor Poverty Rich Divine Divine Love Rags Scarlet God Help Help The Poor Lazarus

Book:The Quotable Spurgeon

Source: The Quotable Spurgeon

“While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not. A study of the origins of 303 textile, railroad and steel executives of the 1870s showed that 90 percent came from middle- or upper-class families. The Horatio Alger stories of "rags to riches" were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control.”

Men Stories Wealth Class Poverty Study Middle Percent Myth Riches Executives Steel Rags Railroads Upper Class Horatio Textiles Rags To Riches

Book:A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

Source: A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

“The haggardness of poverty is everywhere seen contrasted with the sleekness of wealth, the exhorted labour of some compensating for the idleness of others, wretched hovels by the side of stately colonnades, the rags of indigence blended with the ensigns of opulence; in a word, the most useless profusion in the midst of the most urgent wants.”

Want Sides Wealth Poverty Useless Labour Midst Wretched Idleness Urgent Rags Opulence

Author:Jean-Baptiste Say

“Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public.”

Shows Poverty Dresses Profession Expected Suits Beggar Reproach Robes Rags Tenure

Book:Essays of Elia

Source: Essays of Elia

“When you set about your composing, it may be necessary for your ease, and better distillation of wit, to put on your worst clothes, and the worse the better; for an author, like a limbeck, will yield the better for having a rag about him: besides that, I have observed a gardener cut the outward rind of a tree (which is the surtout of it) to make it bear well; and this is a natural account of the usual poverty of poets, and is an argument why wits, of all men living, ought to be ill clad.”

Source: The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ...: With Notes, Historical and Critical

“Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of [Muslim] rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound.”

Poverty Symbols Flags Dirt Rags Wretchedness Crescent Signs And Symbols

Book:The Innocents Abroad

Source: The Innocents Abroad

“Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them—and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution--these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little— crowd it a little—weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand. - "The Chronicle of Young Satan," Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts”