A man who has nothing can whistle in a robber's face.
A poor man is all schemes.
A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread.
America is an enormous frosted cupcake in the middle of millions of starving people.
Anyone who has struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.
As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid.
As poverty has been reduced in terms of mere survival, it has become more profound in terms of our way of life.
As society advances the standard of poverty rises.
At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.
Being broke is a temporary situation. Being poor is a state of mind.
Do not ask the name of the person who seeks a bed for the night. He who is reluctant to give his name is the one who most needs shelter.
Empty pockets make empty heads.
For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred.
Four specters haunt the Poor — Old Age, Accident, Sickness and Unemployment. We are going to exorcise them. We are going to drive hunger from the hearth. We mean to banish the workhouse from the horizon of every workman in the land.
Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.
Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.
Hard as it may appear in individual cases, dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful.
Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.
He that has pity on the poor lends to the Lord.
He who ashamed of his poverty would be equally proud of his wealth.