Poverty Quotes

"Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?—a machine without feelings? And can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;—it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,—as we are!" ~ Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte "Who, being loved, is poor?" ~ A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde Then he would be penniless, with the world before him as a closed oyster to be again opened, and he knew,-no one better,-that this oyster becomes harder and harder in the opening as the man who has to open it becomes older. ~ Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope "This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. " ~ A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens "If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." ~ A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens I wish I were not quite so lonely—and so poor. And yet I love both my loneliness and my poverty. The former makes me appreciate the companionship of the wind and rain, while the latter preserves my liver and prevents me wasting time in dancing attendance upon women. ~ The Listener by Algernon Blackwood Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance. ~ Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift As covetousness is the root of all evil, so poverty is, I believe, the worst of all snares. ~ Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations. ~ Bleak House by Charles Dickens The fortunate man is he who, born poor, or nobody, works gradually up to wealth and consideration, and, having got them, dies before he finds they were not worth so much trouble. ~ Christie Johnstone by Charles Reade