Poverty Wealth Quotes

Where people are really attached, poverty itself is wealth. ~ Jane Austen

I did not grow up in poverty. But I did grow up with a poor boy's sense of longing, in my case not for what my family had never had, but for what we had had and lost. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The worker picked up Pakhom's spade, dug a grave, and buried him - six feet from head to heel, exactly the amount of land a man needs. ~ Leo Tolstoy

All this [wealth] excludes but one evil, poverty. ~ Samuel Johnson

Nothing incites to money-crimes like great poverty or great wealth.
- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927 ~ Mark Twain

Our inability to recall how we really felt is why our wealth of experiences turns out to be poverty of riches. ~ Daniel M. Gilbert

Poverty doesn't come because of the decrease of wealth but because of the increase of desires. ~ Plato

The poor of the world cannot be made rich by the redistribution of wealth. Poverty can't be eliminated by punishing people who've escaped poverty, taking their money and giving it as a reward to people who have failed to escape. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

He who attempts to draw any conclusion whatever as to the nation's wealth or poverty from the mere fact of a favorable or unfavorable Balance of Trade, has not grasped the first fundamental principle of Political Economy. ~ Ernst Engel

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of. ~ Confucius

Today, the United States is No. 1 in corporate profits, No. 1 in CEO salaries, No. 1 in childhood poverty and No. 1 in income and wealth inequality in the industrialized world. ~ Bernie Sanders

Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty. ~ Leo Rosten

If admiration were not generally deemed the exclusive property of the rich, and contempt the constant lackey of poverty, the love of gain would cease to be an universal problem. ~ William Godwin

Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor. ~ Peter Kropotkin

Poverty? Wealth? Seek neither
/ One causes swollen heads, / The other, swollen bellies. ~ Kassia

And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is good," he thought "to taste for yourself everything you need to know. That worldly pleasures and wealth are not good things, I learned even as a child. I knew it for a long time, but only now have I experienced it. And now I know it, I know it not only because I remember hearing it, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach. And it is good for me to know it! ~ Hermann Hesse

Rather than elevating poverty to a form of righteousness, Jesus is instead calling for a revolution of imagination around the nature of what we consider true blessing. ~ Jamie Arpin-Ricci

You, who are ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are a snob; as are you who boast of your wealth. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Seven thousand of them were indicted and arraigned, and then they entered the maw of the criminal justice system - right here - through the gateway into Gibraltar, where the vans were lined up. That was about 150 new cases, 150 more pumping hearts and morose glares, every week that the courts and the Bronx County District Attorney's Office were open. And to what end? The same stupid, dismal, pathetic, horrifying crimes were committed day in and day out, all the same. What was accomplished by assistant D.A.'s, by any of them, through all this relentless stirring of the muck? The Bronx crumbled and decayed a little more, and a little more blood dried in the cracks. The Doubts! One thing was accomplished for sure. The system was fed, and those vans brought in the chow. ~ Tom Wolfe

I live in a world in which 40 men control wealth equal to that of nearly 80 countries, where to maintain their hegemony, countless acts of mayhem and massacre must occur every day. This is the reality that forms and reforms my days as it does those of all people on this hapless planet. I do not think any more that writing - mine or another's - can change the world. Perhaps in their small way, writers can answer for those who are voiceless in their extreme deprivation and suffering, but at best, in the very smallest scheme, writing can provide a moment of grace, both for her who writes and him who reads, in a very dark world. ~ Cecile Pineda

Poverty is not something people impose on themselves for want of effort and community organisation. It is constructed by divisive and discriminatory laws, inflexible organisations, acquisitive ideologies of wealth, a deeply rooted class system and policies which serve privilege in the short term and destroy society in the long term. ~ Pete Townshend

If thy wealth waste, they wit will give but small warmth. ~ John Lyly

...Material goods have gained an increasing and finally inexorable power over the lives of men as at no previous period in history. ~ Max Weber

Poverty is no disgrace. But it is certainly not a recommendation. ~ Napoleon Hill

Poverty is restriction and as such, it is the greatest injustice you can perpetrate upon yourself. ~ Stuart Wilde

Wealth to us is not mere material for vainglory but an opportunity for achievement; and poverty we think it no disgrace to acknowledge but a real degredation to make no effort to overcome. ~ Thucydides

The lack of wealth is easily repaired but the poverty of the soul is irreplaceable. ~ Michel De Montaigne

The vast majority of Americans, at all coordinates of the economic spectrum, consider themselves middle class; this is a deeply ingrained, distinctly American cognitive dissonance. ~ Ellen Cushing

If all had to wait for better things until they could be provided for all, that day would in many instances never come. Even the poorest today owe their relative material well-being to the results of past inequality. ~ Friedrich A. Hayek

One can slide between poor and rich, the difference as slight as between paper and parchment, one voice and a choir, arms hanging by sides and a hug. ~ Jeannine Atkins

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. ~ Jean-Baptiste Say

The rule of law does not do away with the unequal distribution of wealth and power, but reinforces that inequality with the authority of law. It allocates wealth and poverty in such calculated and indirect ways as to leave the victim bewildered. ~ Howard Zinn

You give your way out of poverty but you sacrifice your way to wealth. ~ McWilton Chikwenengere

False shame accompanies a man that is poor, shame that either harms a man greatly or profits him; shame is with poverty, but confidence with wealth. ~ Hesiod

The accumulation of wealth is a process which is of itself morally neutral. True, as Christianity teaches, riches bring temptations. But then so does poverty. ~ Margaret Thatcher

It's come around to that point of view at the end of a long evolutionary process, in which the rule of law has slowly been replaced by giant idiosyncratic bureaucracies that are designed to criminalize failure, poverty, and weakness on the one hand, and to immunize strength, wealth, and success on the other. ~ Matt Taibbi

We extend our best wishes to you, inhabitants of another world.

After reading the following message, you should have a basic understanding of civilization on Earth. By dint of long toil and creativity, the human race has built a splendid civilization, blossoming with a multitude of diverse cultures. We have also begun to understand the laws governing the natural world and the development of human societies. We cherish all that we have accomplished.

But our world is still flawed. Hate exists, as does prejudice and war. Because of conflicts between the forces of production and the relations of production, wealth distribution is extremely uneven, and large portions of humanity live in poverty and misery.

Human societies are working hard to resolve the difficulties and problems they face, striving to create a better future for Earth civilization.The country that sent this message is engaged in this effort. We are dedicated to building an ideal society, where the labor and value of every member of the human race are fully respected, where everyone's material and spiritual needs are fully met, so that civilization on Earth may become more perfect.

With the best of intentions, we look forward to establishing contact with other civilized societies in the universe. We look forward to working together with you to build a better life in this vast universe. ~ Liu Cixin

It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed. ~ Kin Hubbard

The three wealthiest people in the world own more than the GDP of forty-eight countries! ~ Alice Walker

Be not anxious to avoid poverty. In this way the wealth of the universe may be securely invested. ~ Henry David Thoreau

It is good to stay in a peaceful poverty than to stay in a painful wealth. ~ Michael Bassey

There is no virtue in poverty and illness. we all have been created to be healthy and wealthy with more than enough for everyone. ~ Raphael Zernoff

Poverty often puts some people below the law. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Inhibition is no good provider for a needy man ~ Hesiod

When people love each other, they are content with very little. When we have light and joy in our hearts, we don't need material wealth. The most loving communities are often the poorest. If our own life is luxurious and wasteful, we can't approach poor people. If we love people, we want to identify with them and share with them. ~ Jean Vanier

Who hateth me but for my happiness? Or who is honored now but for his wealth? Rather had I, a Jew, be hated thus, Than pitied in a Christian poverty. ~ Christopher Marlowe

You have increasing poverty and increasing wealth. Fine food is one way to dispense with a lot of money ... It's understanding that our daily choices about food connect us to a worldwide economic system. And that economic system - not scarcity - creates worldwide hunger for millions of people. ~ Frances Moore Lappe

We cannot buy it. We are too poor. Then men who have made the law have taken our own drink from us, and have not left us wherewith to buy it. Yet they can buy it, because they are rich. I have a feeling that that is not just. I do not grudge them their riches and all it can buy for them. ~ Neil M. Gunn

We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as something to boast about. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it: the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it. ~ Pericles

Everybody in politics claims to want to get everybody out of poverty. What's the opposite? Wealth. And what is often criticized by the left? Wealth. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Wealth is conspicuous, but poverty hides. ~ James Reston

The purpose and effect of [land titles] have been to maintain, in the hands of robber, or slave holding class, a monopoly of all lands, and, as far as possible, of all other means of creating wealth; and thus to keep the great body of labourers in such a state of poverty and dependence, as would compel them to sell their labour to their tyrants for the lowest prices at which life could be sustained ~ Lysander Spooner

Business is one of the most powerful institutions on Earth for creating wealth and opportunity and helping to lift people out of poverty. When you think about it that way, then business is not separate from development policy. ~ Peter Blair Henry

I knew, of course, that I should be well paid for my services, but I would gladly have accepted half the sum I expected if I could have had it that night, for our little treasury was wholly exhausted, and we had not sixpence to purchase a breakfast for the following day. When the great hall door shut upon me, and I found myself on the pavement, with all the luxury and splendour on one side, and I and my desolation on the other, the contrast struck me cruelly, for I too, had been rich, and dwelt in illuminated palaces, and had a train of liveried servants at my command, and sweet music had echoed through my halls. I felt desperate, and drawing my hat over my eyes I began pacing the square, forming wild plans for the relief or escape from my misery. ("The Italian's Story") ~ Catherine Crowe

I wonder what children whose parents have money think about in their spare time. ~ Gary Shteyngart

Poverty and wealth inequality are a form of instability into the future. ~ Tavis Smiley

Poverty is a great cutter-off and riches a great shutter-off. ~ Lawrence Durrell

I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence. ~ Eugene V. Debs

I've never understood it,' continued Wilfred Carr, yawning. 'It's not in my line at all; I never had enough money for my own wants, let alone for two. Perhaps if I were as rich as you or Croesus I might regard it differently.'
There was just sufficient meaning in the latter part of the remark for his cousin to forbear to reply to it. He continued to gaze out of the window and to smoke slowly.
'Not being as rich as Croesus - or you,' resumed Carr, regarding him from beneath lowered lids, 'I paddle my own canoe down the stream of Time, and, tying it to my friends' doorposts, go in to eat their dinners.' ("The Well") ~ W.W. Jacobs

Economists are coming to acknowledge that measures of national wealth and poverty in terms strictly of average income tell you little that is significant of the health or viability of a society. ~ Rowan Williams

Both poverty and wealth are excellent things, because they are extremes, but the middle ground is damaging to the soul. ~ Pamela Moore

You could live your whole life in one of those cities and never know how ugly it was somewhere else. ~ Becky Chambers

The source of wealth is from individuals with little or no history of interest in the game, who have happened upon football as a means of serving some hidden agenda. ~ Sepp Blatter

A hadith in Sahih Muslim says: "Allah does not look at your appearance or your wealth but at your hearts and deeds. (no. 2654)"

These verses put the whole issue of dress into a different perspective: one that reminds believers not to forget that what counts for Allah is their piety. This message is a strong antidote to capitalism's materialist culture that places success firmly in the material world, and that teaches people to be a slave to their desires, and to make pleasure their end goal ("Obey Your Thirst" proclaims a soft-drink commercial). Teenagers in the West can be killed for their Nike shoes, an indication of just how far capitalism has corrupted the human soul. ~ Katherine Bullock

You should not strive for your own personal wealth but for the prosperity of the Kingdom of
God. ~ Sunday Adelaja

Wealth, my son, should never be your goal in life. Your words are eloquent but they are mere words. True wealth is of the heart, not of the purse. ~ Og Mandino

There's no way that Michael Jackson or whoever Jackson should have a million thousand droople billion dollars and then there's people starving. There's no way! There's no way that these people should own planes and there people don't have houses. Apartments. Shacks. Drawers. Pants! I know you're rich. I know you got 40 billion dollars, but can you just keep it to one house? You only need ONE house. And if you only got two kids, can you just keep it to two rooms? I mean why have 52 rooms and you know there's somebody with no room?! It just don't make sense to me. It don't. ~ Tupac Shakur

Wealth is a gift from God, and pride is bequeathed to us from the devil. ~ Douglas Wilson

No one is born poor. People choose to become and remain poor. No one became wealthy from begging. Only people who have set limits on themselves do that. No one became wealthy from living off handouts. This is not the will of God for anyone. No one became wealthy from foraging in people's bins. Only rats do that. You can excel and make money where you are without running helter skelter in search of green pastures. ~ Uyoyou C. Charles-Iyoha

Money: My Thesis

Money can buy you comfort,
but it can't buy you peace.
Money can buy you pleasure,
but it can't buy you happiness.
Money can buy you food,
but it can't buy you contentment.
Money can buy you delight,
but it can't buy you love.

Money can buy you praise,
but it can't buy you honor.
Money can buy you titles,
but it can't buy you respect.
Money can buy you neighbors,
but it can't buy you friends.
Money can buy you crowds,
but it can't buy you God.

Money can buy you religion,
but it can't buy you faith.
Money can buy you education,
but it can't buy you wisdom.
Money can buy you medicine,
but it can't buy you health.
Money can buy you time,
but it can't buy you life.

Money can buy you a compass,
but it can't buy you purpose.
Money can buy you luck,
but it can't buy you fate.
Money can buy you advisers,
but it can't buy you certainty.
Money can buy you today,
but it can't buy you tomorrow.

Money can buy you fish,
but it can't buy you the ocean.
Money can buy you land,
but it can't buy you the world.
Money can buy you aeroplanes,
but it can't buy you the skies.
Money can buy you telescopes,
but it can't buy you the stars. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love a cow - for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage. ~ Meister Eckhart

Against the new leviathan, whether in the guise of universal suffrage, democracy, or of an equally fraudulent triumphant proletariat, he (Kierkegaard) pitted the individual human soul made in the image of a God who was concerned about the fate of every living creature. In contrast with the notion of salvation through power, he held out the hope of salvation through suffering. The Cross against the ballot box or clenched fist; the solitary pilgrim against the slogan-shouting mob; the crucified Christ against the demagogue-dictators promising a kingdom of heaven on earth, whether achieved through endlessly expanding wealth and material well-being, or through the ever greater concentration of power and its ever more ruthless exercise. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

The amassing of unfettered wealth of individuals and corporations should stop. The inheritance of rich people's wealth by their children should stop. The expropriators should have their wealth expropriated and redistributed. ~ Arundhati Roy

When we reach a certain age we have opportunity to decide how we present ourselves to the world, and that age is getting ever younger. Even our young teenage generation is aware of fashion and we grow acutely more and more aware of how obsessed our society is with imagery and appearance. Or rather we become more aware that to get on in life we need to be brash and bright and sparkling all the time. That bright colours and big noises is what gets your through life, that any substance behind that is almost irrelevant to success. We only need look at who we proclaim as celebrities, who society rewards with wealth, that substance is not a prerequisite to success.




Be bright, make a statement, choose a bold look, dye your hair, pierce your body, paint it with permanent ink, wear outlandish clothes and don't be afraid to say something crude or mean or controversial because that's the person you are.




Or is it?




Is it that when you've done with the all the additions to your body, the person you look at in the mirror is no longer the real you. It is a character, the one you think society wants you to be, that society has convinced you that you want to be, substance optional. One of the most beautiful moments of conversation on and offline I've had with some people is when they surprise me, a comment or opinion with substance and thought, something away fro their character, revealing the real indivi ~ Raven Lockwood

Even Kings and emperors with heaps of wealth and vast dominion cannot compare with an ant filled with the love of God. ~ Guru Nanak

Rather than assume that the wealthy are a monolithic, selfish and unfeeling lot who must be subjugated by the force of the state, set a tone that encourages people of good will to meet in the middle. ~ Leon G. Cooperman

Thieves at home must hang; but he that puts Into his overgorged and bloated purse The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes. ~ William Cowper

That means laying out a vision of the world that competes directly with the one on harrowing display at the Heartland conference and in so many other parts of our culture, one that resonates with the majority of people on the planet because it is true: That we are not apart from nature but of it. That acting collectively for a greater good is not suspect, and that such common projects of mutual aid are responsible for our species' greatest accomplishments. That greed must be disciplined and tempered by both rule and example. That poverty amidst plenty is unconscionable. ~ Naomi Klein

Do not be proud of wealth, people, relations and friends, or youth. All these are snatched by time in the blink of an eye. Giving up this illusory world, know and attain the Supreme. ~ Adi Shankara

Wesley taught me the Way of the Owl. In the human world your value as a person is often intrinsically linked to your wealth or most recent accomplishment. But all the accoutrements of the world were stripped away from me when I got sick. Welsey made me realize that if all I had to give was love, that was enough. I didn't need money, status, accomplishment, glamour or many of the empty things we so value. ~ Stacey O'Brien

Rich Indians typically tried to work around a dysfunctional government. Private security was hired, city water was filtered, private school tuitions were paid. Such choices had evolved over the years into a principle: The best government is the one that gets out of the way.
The attacks on the Taj and the Oberoi, in which executives and socialites died, had served as a blunt correction. The wealthy now saw that their security could not be requisitioned privately. They were dependent on the same public safety system that ill served the poor. ~ Katherine Boo

What, pray, can be more sacred than this sacred mystery? What can be more delightful than the pleasure found therein? What food, what honey can be sweeter than to learn of God's wise plan, to enter into His sanctuary and gaze on the mind of the Creator, and to rehearse the words of your Lord, which, though derided by the wise of this world, are really full of spiritual wisdom! Let the others, if they will, have their wealth, and drink from jewelled cups, be clad in silk, and bask in popular applause, as if they could not exhaust their riches in all kinds of pleasures. Our delight shall be to meditate on the Law of the Lord day and night, to knock at His door when it is not open, to receive the bread of the Trinity, and, with our Lord going before us, to walk on the billows of the world. ~ Jerome

To get rich never risk your health. For it is the truth that health is the wealth of wealth. ~ Richard Baker

When a human in happy time, he/she doesn't understand the reality! He/she doesn't realize it until he/she is touched by sadness, pain, poverty, refusal, betrayal, hate, abuse and so many things. Until then he/she doesn't know what the reality is. Cause the reality is very harsh and very hard to accept. ~ Salman Aziz

Wherever a pain is, that's where the cure goes; wherever poverty is, that's where provision goes. Wherever a difficult question is, that's where the answer goes; wherever a ship is, water goes to it. Don't seek the water; increase your thirst, so water may gush forth from above and below. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi

If you ask the other John and Peggy (my parents) how they've managed to stay married for well over half a century, they'll credit an uncompromising level of honesty with each other. If you press them, though, you'll learn that their commitment to the truth did not extend to their children. Indeed, when it came to raising three boys on a public school teachers salary, my parents lied like rugs./
It was a strange sort of snobbery to develop at such an early age - this sympathy for the more fortunate - but that's precisely what my parents engendered. With duplicity and guile, they Turn envy to pity. By the time I was eleven, I felt nothing but compassion for classmates of mine who had been forced to wear the latest fashions. Sadly, they had no older cousins to provide them with a superior wardrobe of "softer, sturdier, broken-in alternatives. ~ Mike Rowe

Cesar is not a philosophical man. His life has been one long flight from reflection. At least he is clever enough not to expose the poverty of his general ideas; he never permits the conversation to move toward philosophical principles. Men of his type so dread all deliberation that they glory in the practice of the instantaneous decision. They think they are saving themselves from irresolution; in reality they are sparing themselves the contemplation of all the consequences of their acts. Moreover, in this way they can rejoice in the illusion of never having made a mistake; for act follows so swiftly on act that it is impossible to reconstruct the past and say that an alternative decision would have been better. They can pretend that every act was forced on them under emergency and that every decision was mothered by necessity ~ Thornton Wilder

There's only one thing that the ruling circles throughout history have ever wanted-all the wealth, the treasures, and the profitable returns; all the choice lands and forests and game and herds and harvests and mineral deposits and precious metals of the earth; all the productive facilities and gainful inventiveness and technologies; all the control positions of the state and other major institutions; all public supports and subsidies, privileges and immunities; all the protections of the law and none of its constraints; all of the services and comforts and luxuries and advantages of civil society with none of the taxes and none of the costs. Every ruling class in history has wanted only this-all the rewards and none of the burdens. ~ Michael Parenti

It's so hard for me to even acknowledge America without talking about race. If you look at our society, if you look at the prisons, if you look at the poverty and which side of the line the majority of people are, we have to acknowledge how we divide ourselves up, that there's racism alive in this country. And it's not in the law. It's in our minds. And that's what we have to actively battle. ~ Dave Matthews

But when we commend Christ as the one who satisfies our soul forever - even when there is no health, wealth, and prosperity - then Christ is magnified as more precious than all those gifts. ~ John Piper

The rich are richer, and the poor are poorer, in the city than elsewhere; and, as a rule, the greater are the riches of the rich and the poverty of the poor. ~ Josiah Strong

In a society of little economic development, universal inactivity accompanies universal poverty. You survive not by struggling against nature, or by increasing production, or by relentless labor; instead you survive by expending as little energy as possible, by striving constantly to achieve a state of immobility. ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski

It is commonly observed that a sudden wealth, like a prize drawn in a lottery or a large bequest to a poor family, does not permanently enrich. They have served no apprenticeship to wealth, and with the rapid wealth come rapid claims which they do not know how to deny, and the treasure is quickly dissipated. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

He that is rich is wise. ~ Daniel Defoe

In 1928, the top 10 percent of earners captured 46 percent of national income. That was the highest share that the top tenth captured for nearly eighty years, until 2007, when we returned to the wealth distribution of the country on the eve of the Great Depression. The top 1 percent did even better. Between 1979 and 2007, nearly 88 percent of the entire economy's income gains went to the top 1 percent.49 One ~ Christopher L. Hayes

A State divided into a small number of rich and a large number of poor will always develop a government manipulated by the rich to protect the amenities represented by their property. ~ Harold Laski

But equal treatment in an unequal society could still foster inequality. Because black men were disproportionately incarcerated and black women disproportionately evicted, uniformly denying housing to applicants with recent criminal or eviction records still had an incommensurate impact on African Americans. ~ Matthew Desmond

A world will come over you, the happiness, the wealth, the inconceivable greatness of a world. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Poverty in America today leads not only to anxiety, unhappiness, discomfort and a lack of material goods. It leads to death. Poverty in America today is a death sentence for tens and tens of thousands of our people. ~ Bernie Sanders