Poverty - Quotes

Any strategy to reduce intergenerational poverty has to be centred on work, not welfare – not only because work provides independence and income but also because work provides order, structure, dignity, and opportunities for growth in people's lives. - Barack Obama

Better poverty without care, than riches with. - Aesop

Debt is the worst poverty. - Thomas Fuller

Few things in this world trouble people more than poverty, or the fear of poverty; and indeed it is a sore affliction; but, like all other ills that flesh is heir to, it has its antidote, its reliable remedy. The judicious application of industry, prudence, and temperance is a certain cure. - Hosea Ballou

From poverty to wealth is a troublesome journey, but the way back is easy. - Unknown

I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. - Benjamin Franklin

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. - Seneca

He that would be content with a mean condition must not cast his eye upon one that is in a far better estate than himself, but let him look upon him that is lower than he is, and, if he see that such a one bears poverty comfortably, it will help to quiet him. - Anne Bradstreet

If rich, it is easy enough to conceal our wealth; but, if poor, it is not quite so easy to conceal our poverty. We shall find that it is less difficult to hide a thousand guineas, than one hole in our coat. - Charles Caleb Colton

If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin. - Charles Darwin

It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty. - Juvenal 

It is not poverty so much as pretence that harasses a ruined man – the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse – the keeping up of a hollow show that must soon come to an end. - Washington Irving

One who is by nature daring and is suffering from poverty will not long be law-abiding. - Confucius 

Poor and content is rich and rich enough. - Shakespeare

Poverty breeds discontent. - Unknown

Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable and others extremely difficult. - Samuel Johnson

Poverty is a noose that strangles humility and breeds disrespect for man. - Native American Proverb

Poverty is no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient. - Sydney Smith

Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings. - Nelson Mandela

Poverty is the mother of crime. - Marcus Aurelius

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. - Aristotle

Poverty is the root of all evils. - Unknown

Poverty is the schoolmaster of character. - Antisthenes

Poverty is the step-mother of genius. - Josh Billings

Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim. - James Garfield 

Poverty is to happiness what appetite is to food – poverty enables us to enjoy the simplest pleasures; appetite, the simplest fare. - Charles Edward Jerningham

Poverty is very good in poems ... in maxims and in sermons, but it is very bad in practical life. - Henry Ward Beecher

Poverty keeps the vision pure. - Robert Leighton 

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul impossible. - Michel Montaigne

Poverty of purpose is far worse than poverty of purse. - Unknown

Poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue; it is hard for an empty bag to stand upright. - Benjamin Franklin

Poverty often hides her charms under an ugly mask; yet thousands have been forced into greatness by their very struggle to keep the wolf from the door. - Orison Sweet Marden

Poverty too often turns the milk of human kindness into gall. - Eliza Cook

Poverty, the most fearful monster that ever drew breath. - Aristophanes

Poverty, therefore, was comparative. One measured it by a sliding scale. One was always poor, in terms of those who were richer. - Margaret Dabble

Riches and ease, it is perfectly clear, are not necessary for man's highest culture, else had not the world been so largely indebted in all times to those who have sprung from the humbler ranks. An easy and luxurious existence does not train men to effort or encounter with difficulty; nor does it awaken that consciousness of power which is so necessary for energetic and effective action in life. Indeed, so far from poverty being a misfortune, it may, by vigorous self-help, be converted even into a blessing; rousing a man to that struggle with the world in which, though some may purchase ease by degradation, the right-minded and true-hearted will find strength, confidence, and triumph. - Samuel Smiles

The fellow that has no money is poor. The fellow that has nothing but money is poorer still. - Billy Sunday

The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty. - George Bernard Shaw

The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved. - Mother Teresa

There is a noble manner of being poor, and who does not know it will never be rich. - Seneca

Truly, whoever possesses little is that much less possessed: praised be a little poverty! - Friedrich Nietzsche

We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition. - William James

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind o of poverty. - Mother Theresa

What a devil art thou, Poverty! How many desires – how many aspirations after goodness and truth – how many noble thoughts, loving wishes toward our fellows, beautiful imaginings thou hast crushed under thy heel, without remorse or pause! - Walt Whitman

What keeps some persons poor? and what has made some others rich? The true answers to these queries would often make the poor man more proud of his poverty, than the rich man is of his wealth, and the rich man more justly ashamed of his wealth, than the poor man unjustly now is, of his poverty. - Charles Caleb Colton

Whatever may be said of the dangers of riches, the dangers of poverty are tenfold greater. A condition in which one is exposed to continual want, not only of the luxuries but of the veriest necessaries of life, as well as to disease and discouragement, is exceedingly unfavourable to the exercise of the higher functions of the mind and soul. The poor man is hourly beset by troops of temptations which the rich man never knows. - William Mathews

When poverty comes in at doors, love leaps out at windows. - John Clarke

When you have a spiritual foundation, you look at poverty differently then. - Dennis Banks

Where poverty ceases, avarice begins. - Honore de Balzac

You can never have international peace as long as you have national poverty. - Stephen Leacock

You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money. - P. J O'Rourke

You cannot sift out the poor from the community. The poor are indispensable to the rich. - Henry Ward Beecher