Best Squalor Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“What do we mean by poverty? Not what Dickens or Blake or Mayhew meant. Today no one seriously expects to go hungry in England or to live without running water or medical care or even TV. Poverty has been redefined in industrial countries, so that anyone at the lower end of the income distribution is poor ex officio, as it were-poor by virtue of having less than the rich. And of course by this logic, the only way of eliminating poverty is by an egalitarian redistribution of wealth-even if the society as a whole were to become poorer as a result.”

Poverty Squalor Poverty Line Relative Poverty And Wealth

Book:Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass

Source: Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass

“She is drawn to the river, and all its hideous, dead-eyed treasures: rot-bloated cats, and cold-meat corpses of unwanted infants, eels plucking at their tender fingers and toes.”

Death Poverty Disease London Decay Dirt Urban City Corpses River Babies Squalor

Book:The Gentlemen's Club

Source: The Gentlemen's Club

“I tell you, say the rich, the poor are naught but dirty wind welling in air-shafts over the cinders and droppings of the past, their voices thick with grease and ordure, sewer-greed to corrode the ear with the horrors of the past and the voids of new stupidity. One could drown waiting for the poor to make one fine distinction. Yes, destroy us say the rich and you lose the roots of God.”

Wealth Poor Rich Squalor

Book:Deaths For The Ladies

Source: Deaths For The Ladies

“Wealth without thankfulness is nothing more than well-heeled squalor.”

Wealth Grateful Greed Appreciation Thanksgiving Thankfulness Thankful Squalor

Author:Craig D. Lounsbrough

“The mask of art is the means through which corruption is spread. The mask makes vice seem beautiful, turns squalor and nastiness into glamorous thrill, seduces the onlooker into the game – and leaves him or her with the corpse on his hands.”

Art Corruption Mask Seduction Vice Squalor Corpse Thrills

Author:Jennifer Birkett

“Human beings in there took turns standing or lying down. The legs of those who stood were like fence posts driven into a warm, squirming, farting, sighing earth. The queer earth was a mosaic of sleepers who nestled like spoons.”

Indignity Squalor Pows Prisoners Of War

Book:SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE

Source: SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE

“Satin occupied a couple of rooms which a chemist had furnished for her in order to rescue her from the clutches of the police; but in little over a year she had broken the furniture, knocked in the chairs and dirtied the curtains in such a frenzy of filth and disorder that the two rooms looked as if they were inhabited by a pack of mad cats.”

Disorder Prostitution Filth Squalor

Book:Nana

Source: Nana

“Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him—that is the best account of it that has been yet given. Squalor and tragedy can beckon to all that is great in us; and strengthen the wings of love.”

Love Death Tragedy Salvation Howards End E M Forster Squalor

Book:Howards End

Source: Howards End

“It's a cultural matter. They take pride in their unpride. It reflects their lack of status. Bottom... of the bottom of the human world, and they know it, and they don't like it, and the squalor is like a badge of nonstatus for them. Saying, you want us to be filth, we'll live in filth too. Reveling in it. Wallowing in it. If we're not people, we don't have to be tidy....”

Squalor

Book:Tower of Glass

Source: Tower of Glass

“Used" is such an odd word, so much stranger than "second-hand." A prefix for condoms, and there's a certain squalor attached to the idea of reusing those.”

Used Second Hand Squalor

Book:The Bookstore

Source: The Bookstore

“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.”

People Men Needs Belief Community Levels Existence Moral Integrity Cynical Man Of Integrity Squalor

Book:Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too?

Source: Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too?

“In a community where public services have failed to keep abreast of private consumption things are very different. Here, in an atmosphere of private opulence and public squalor, the private goods have full sway.”

Different Community Atmosphere Goods Consumption Public Service Squalor Opulence

Book:The affluent society

Source: The affluent society

“Having been issued the false prospectus of happiness through unlimited sex, modern man concludes, when he is not happy with his life, that his sex has not been unlimited enough. If welfare does not eliminate squalor, we need more welfare; if sex does not bring happiness, we need more sex.”

Ifs Men Needs Doe Enough Sex Modern Welfare Unlimited Not Happy Modern Man Squalor

Author:Anthony Daniels

“all the small squalors of the body, known only to oneself, insignificant in youth, easily dismissed, in old age became dominant and entered into fulfilment of the tyranny they had always threatened.”

Body Age Known Youth Oneself Tyranny Old Age Dominant Threatened Insignificant Fulfilment Squalor

Author:Vita Sackville-West

“Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soulless army of human prey.”

Ifs Humans America Joy Individual Nations Wealth Poor United States Gone Crime Army Homeless Prey Filth Soulless Squalor

Author:Emma Goldman

“Nowhere more than in New York does the contest between squalor and splendor so sharply present itself.”

Doe New York Contests Splendor Squalor

Book:Folly as It Flies

Source: Folly as It Flies

“Organisation of social insurance should be treated as one part only of a comprehensive policy of social progress. Social insurance fully developed may provide income security; it is an attack upon Want. But Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction and in some ways the easiest to attack. The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.”

Way Want Should May Social Five Progress Security Policy Ignorance Disease Income Treated Giants Idleness Comprehensive Organisation Reconstruction Social Progress Squalor

Author:William Beveridge

“poverty is like a pain, dormant and unbearable as long as you don't move about too much. You grow used to it, you end up by paying no attention to it. But once you presume to bring it out in the daylight, it becomes terrifying, you see it at last in all its squalor and you shrink from exposing it to the sun.”

Long Ends Pain Lasts Moving Used Grows Attention Poverty Sun Too Much Shrinks Unbearable Daylight Exposing Dormant Squalor

Author:Gabrielle Roy

People Seeing Morality Drug Squalor

Author:Irving Stone

“Have not all theists painted their Deity as the god of love and goodness? Yet after thousands of years of such preachments the gods remain deaf to the agony of the human race. Confucius cares not for the poverty, squalor and misery of the people of China. Buddha remains undisturbed in his philosophical indifference to the famine and starvation of outraged Hindoos; Jahve continues deaf to the bitter cry of Israel; while Jesus refuses to rise from the dead against his Christians who are butchering each other.”

Source: Mother Earth, a Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Social Science and Literature

“The poet who writes "free" verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor - dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor.”

“Ugliness, squalor are breeding grounds for revolution. Beauty is conducive to tranquillity, happiness. Beautifying of homes and places of worship began with the dawn of civilization. Beautifying of workplaces is only in its infancy. Yet, since men normally spend more than half of their waking hours at work, surely it is important that adequate attention be devoted to elevating their working environment, whether office or factory, foundry or machine shop, mine or warehouse. Beautiful surroundings subtly encourage beautiful living. Drab surroundings, bad air, bad light, evoke bad reactions.”

“The distractions, the exhaustions, the savage noises, the demands of town life, are, for me, mortal enemies to thought, to sleep,and to study; its extremes of squalor and of splendor do not stimulate, but sadden me; certain phases of its society I profoundly value, but would sacrifice them to the heaven of country quiet, if I had to choose between.”

“That is the American experiment. An ethnic group arriving on America's shores, to be reviled and hazed, living in squalor, or if they are lucky Squalor Heights, working hard to give their children or grandchildren the opportunity to sh*t on the next group landing on our shores.”

Ifs Giving Children Hard America Next Opportunity Groups Lucky Experiments Height Shore Grandchildren Landing Arriving Ethnic Groups Squalor

Author:Jon Stewart

“To travel only a few blocks in his own homeland, an elderly grandfather waits to beg for the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is required to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail. Continue reading the main story Advertisement Continue reading the main story The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in the cities, but luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints, paralyzing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger are all too familiar.”

“The information age has been driven and dominated by technopreneurs. We now have to apply these technologies in saving lives, improving livelihoods and lifting millions of people out of squalor, misery and suffering. In other words, our focus must now move from the geeks to the meek.”

“There is something deeply attractive, at least to quite a lot of people, about squalor, misery, and vice. They are regarded as more authentic, and certainly more exciting, than cleanliness, happiness, and virtue.”

People Virtue Exciting Misery Vices Attractive Cleanliness Squalor

Book:Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy

Source: Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy

“The most abiding memory of visiting Lucian Freud's studio were his eyes, with the gimlet gaze of a Hooded Falcon. But he made for very relaxing company, quick to be amused at the world and his own peccadilloes. He enjoyed the seedy squalor of his rooms in a posh house in the most desirable part of Holland Park, and living up to his persona as an oddball bohemian.”

World Made Eye House Memories Rooms Company Studios Enjoyed His Eyes Parks Desirable Abiding Persona Visiting Amused Holland Bohemian Falcon Posh Squalor Oddballs Gimlets

Book:Babble

Source: Babble

“Better a sovereign in squalor than a slave in splendor.”

Slave Sovereign Splendor Squalor

Author:Donald James

“In the event of a violent revolution, we would be sorely outnumbered. And when it was all over, the Negro would face the same unchanged conditions, the same squalor and deprivation-the only difference being that his bitterness would be even more intense, his disenchantment even more abject. Thus, in purely practical as well as moral terms, the American Negro has no rational alternative to nonviolence.”

“There's no question that in my lifetime, the contrast between what I called private affluence and public squalor has become very much greater.”

Greater Lifetime Contrast Affluence Squalor

Author:John Kenneth Galbraith

“No one is demonizing or even saying anything as intemperate as Donald Trump has said about blacks living in squalor conditions.”

Said Conditions Trump Squalor

Author:Donna Brazile

“There's no question that in my lifetime, the contrast between what I called private affluence and public squalor has become very much greater. What do we worry about? We worry about our schools. We worry about our public recreational facilities. We worry about our law enforcement and our public housing. All of the things that bear upon our standard of living are in the public sector.”

School Law Worry Greater Bears Standards Lifetime Contrast Law Enforcement Enforcement Housing Facility Standards Of Living Affluence Public Sector Squalor Public Housing

Author:John Kenneth Galbraith

“At the foot of the mountain, the park ended and suddenly all was squalor again. I was once more struck by this strange compartmentalization that goes on in America -- a belief that no commercial activities must be allowed inside the park, but permitting unrestrained development outside, even though the landscape there may be just as outstanding. America has never quite grasped that you can live in a place without making it ugly, that beauty doesn't have to be confined behind fences, as if a national park were a sort of zoo for nature.”

Source: The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-town America

“Not only did I rediscover every experience of my life, I had to live each unfulfilled desire as well—as though they’d been fulfilled. I saw that what transpires in the mind is just as real as any flesh and blood occurrence. What had only been imagination in life, now became tangible, each fantasy a full reality. I lived them all—while, at the same time, standing to the side, a witness to their, often, intimate squalor. A witness cursed with total objectivity.”

Mind Wells Real Reality Desire Sides Imagination Fantasy Saws Blood Standing Flesh Witness Intimate Fulfilled Objectivity Tangible Cursed Flesh And Blood Squalor Unfulfilled Desires

Author:Richard Matheson

“So, is there hope for a truly democratic Africa? Long answer: Only if continent-wide improvements in education, human rights and public health are coupled with an aggressive and far-sighted debt-relief program that breaks the cycle of subsistence farming and urban squalor. Short answer: No.”

Ifs Humans Long Answers Break Rights Program Democratic Human Rights Debt Wide Improvement Relief Cycles Aggressive Continents Urban Farming Public Health Subsistence Squalor

Author:Jon Stewart

“Out of its squalor and human decay, its eruptions of butchery, India produced so many people of grace and beauty, ruled by elaborate courtesy. Producing too much life, it denied the value of life; yet it permitted a unique human development to so many. Nowhere were people so heightened, rounded and individualistic; nowhere did they offer themselves so fully and with such assurance. To know Indians was to take a delight in people as people; every encounter was an adventure. I did not want India to sink [out of my memory]; the mere thought was painful.”

“For a wonderful physical tie binds the parents to the children; and - by some sad, strange irony - it does not bind us children to our parents. For if it did, if we could answer their love not with gratitude but with equal love, life would lose much of its pathos and much of its squalor, and we might be wonderfully happy.”

Ifs Children Doe Might Parent Loses Answers Wonderful Strange Gratitude Equal Irony Ties Love Life Pathos Squalor Equal Love

Book:Where Angels Fear to Tread

Source: Where Angels Fear to Tread

“The nation which once held the creed that greatness is achieved by production, is now told that it is achieved by squalor.”

Nations Achieve Greatness Philosopher Productions Novelists Reaching Creeds Playwright Screenwriters Squalor

Book:Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“Was it love of people?' I asked her. 'Of course no,' she snapped sharply. 'How can you love ignorant, brutish people whom you don't even know? Can anyone love filth and squalor? Or lice and rats? Who can love aching weariness, and carry on working, in spite of it? One cannot love these things. One can only love God, and through His grace come to love His people.”

People Knows Courses Grace Ignorant God Love Spite Rats Only Love Weariness Filth Squalor Lice

Author:Jennifer Worth

“The things that are essential are acquired with little bother; it is the luxuries that call for toil and effort.”

Littles Effort Essentials Simplicity Luxury Bother Toil Squalor

Author:Seneca the Younger

“I absolutely relate to being alone in squalor, trying to come up with something adequate. I relate to that, and I've been known to crawl out of bed and drink out of a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke.”

Trying Known Drink Bed Come Up Relate Diets Bottles Adequate Coke Squalor Diet Coke

Author:Diablo Cody

“It is just as important to bring people the evidence of the beauty of the world of nature and of man as it is to give them a document of ugliness, squalor, and despair.”

People Men World Giving Important Despair Photography Evidence Photographer Documents Ugliness Beauty Of The World Squalor

Book:Ansel Adams: An Autobiography

Source: Ansel Adams: An Autobiography

“To want simply what is enough nowadays suggests to people primitiveness and squalor.”

People Want Inspirational Enough Simplicity Squalor

Author:Seneca the Younger

“Suppose we took a thousand negatives... combining the elegances, the squalor, the curiosities, the monuments, the sad faces, the triumphant faces, the power, the irony, the strength, the decay, the past, the present, the future of a city - that would be my favorite picture.”

Would Be Past Faces Cities Thousand Curiosity My Favorite Irony Decay Elegance Monument Triumphant Combining Squalor Sad Face

Author:Berenice Abbott

“She was privileged enough to feel at home anywhere, and to equate squalor with authenticity.”

Feels Enough Home Authenticity Privileged Squalor

Book:Glover's mistake

Source: Glover's mistake

“South Africa is such a fraught place to live. The anxiety about crime, the crunching on racial eggshells, the juxtaposition of First World materialism with Third World squalor.”

World Firsts Crime Anxiety Thirds South Racist Materialism South Africa Third World Places To Live Juxtaposition Squalor Eggshells

Author:Rory Carroll

“Straightforwardness and simplicity are in keeping with goodness.”

Goodness Simplicity Squalor

Author:Seneca the Younger

“Straightforwardness and simplicity are in keeping with goodness. The things that are essential are acquired with little bother; it is the luxuries that call for toil and effort. To want simply what is enough nowadays suggests to people primitiveness and squalor.”

People Want Littles Enough Effort Essentials Goodness Simplicity Luxury Bother Toil Squalor

Author:Seneca the Younger

“Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction; the others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness.”

Want Desire Five Ignorance Disease Giants Idleness Reconstruction Squalor

Author:William Beveridge

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Squalor Quotes